


Primitive

by A_Hobbyist



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27376807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Hobbyist/pseuds/A_Hobbyist
Summary: It's a mammal-eat-mammal world. Cats eat mice, wolves eat sheep, and foxes eat rabbits. Until one night changes everything.
Comments: 25
Kudos: 101





	1. Unaware

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Zootopia AU. Mammals are intelligent, but primitive. Some species live like savages, while others are on the cusp of civilization. But what's the difference? A young rabbit is about to learn that it's not the food you eat, nor the tools you use.
> 
> Only choice can separate a mammal from a monster.

A shuffling sound at the front of his burrow shook the fox from his slumber. Something had fallen into his den, making enough noise to wake him.

Green eyes blinked open. They were well-adjusted to the dark, dirt walls, easily scanning their surroundings for danger. They found the intruder immediately.

It was a bunny: bruised, bloody, and making small sniffing sounds.

The fox could hardly believe his luck. A prey animal – one of the tastiest and hardest to capture – had just stumbled directly into his hovel. He could hardly believe his _bad_ luck. Of all the nights for his stomach to be stuffed full to bursting, it had to be _this_ one.

Today had been the best day for hunting all year. Hunts like that only came around once, _maybe_ twice in a lifetime. A bunny would have been the perfect way to round it all out, from fish to fowl to mammal. But he hadn't found any mammals at the time, so he stuck to fish and fowl.

Now, for maybe the first time in his life, he was regretting his choice to eat so much. It would be hours before he could eat even _half_ of this bunny.

He could, he supposed, kill it now and eat it later.

But he might not be able to get to the meat before it spoiled, especially during a hot summer like this one. He didn't like the idea of a den full of flies and rotting meat. 'Keep the deaths away from the den,' his mother had always said. But now, that advice was working against him.

So, no killing. But what other options did he have?

The bunny was curled in a tight ball on the ground; it hadn't noticed him yet. It just stayed there, still sniffling. Still unaware. That was good.

But the bunny would probably notice him long before he became hungry again, which was bad.

How could he keep the bunny from leaving? He didn't have any heavy rocks he could use to keep it pinned to the ground. He didn't have anything he could use to block the entrance of his home. There was nothing big enough. In fact, there was nothing at all inside the burrow except the bunny and-

Wait... _That's it!_ The fox thought triumphantly. _He_ could sit in front of the doorway. Or better yet, _he_ could pin down the rabbit himself. He could keep it from running, keep it from moving, and keep it with him until he was hungry again. It was the perfect plan!

Now, all he had to do was execute it.

Slowly, he uncurled his body. Carefully, he put all four paws beneath him, shifting from a sleeping position to a stalking one. Cautiously, he crawled forward on his claw pads, not making the slightest noise.

His eyes were trained on the bunny, watching for any sudden movements. If it bolted upright at any moment, he would dash forward. There would be no escapes on his watch. But other than the small shivers of its fur, the bunny didn't move.

Once again, he could hardly believe his luck, good and bad. This would have been the easiest hunt of his life, if only he could finish it right now. Instead, it might be worse than usual. Rather than waiting a while for prey to prance into position, he'll be waiting forever for his food to fully digest.

_All it needs is patience,_ he thought, quietly creeping closer and closer. _It'll be just like any hunt, only longer._

The rabbit still hadn't noticed him. It was still on its side, still sniffling, still unmoving.

The fox grinned to itself as it stood a body length away, then froze just before pouncing.

He had no idea how he should pin the rabbit down. If he did it wrong, the rabbit might squeeze out from under him and run away. For that matter, if he startled the rabbit too much, it might bite or kick. Come to think of it, the rabbit probably _would_ bite and kick him if he tried to pin it down.

Then again, it _was_ already injured, so maybe it wouldn't have the energy.

_So how do I do this?_ the fox asked himself. _Do I push it onto its stomach and sit on its back?_

He imagined what it would take to do that.

_No, I'd have to uncurl it from that ball first. Too risky. So what do I do?_

He thought about it some more, observing the rabbit and considering angles of attack. The rabbit was a little more than half his size. He _should_ be able to wrap his body around it. Or his forepaws and hind paws, at least.

_So I just... hug it?_ He thought to himself. For a moment, he thought back to his years as a pup. His own mother's hugs were very difficult to escape, even when he was the rabbit's size. He couldn't even manage to bite and scratch his captor, not that he wanted to.

The fox looked at the rabbit, imagining his approach. Eventually, with a very small nod to himself, the fox moved forward again. _A hug it is._

Carefully, he dropped from all fours, placing his own side on the ground and mimicking the rabbit's position.

But before reaching his paws out, he paused again. He wondered how he should grab the rabbit. If he did it quickly, he might startle it into a kicking frenzy. If he did it slowly, it might get away.

He weighed his choices. On the one paw was pain and success. On the other was safety and failure.

A painful plan with good odds or a painless plan with bad odds?

Eventually, he made his choice. He could always track the rabbit by scent if it escaped. But if he was injured before then, he'd lose the hunt.

_Slow and steady it is_ , he thought.

His mind made up, the fox trailed a forepaw and a back paw through the air, silently passing them over the rabbit – an action which his other two paws mirrored on the ground, stopping just short of touching fur.

The fox's heart was hammering in his chest. _This is it._

Slowly, he lowered the paws in the air until they wrapped around the rabbit, just barely avoiding contact. Then, he pushed the paws on the ground forward, moving them under the rabbit's body. At the same time, he pressed his other two paws around its torso and leg.

The rabbit drew a quick breath, muscles tensing as it felt his fingers on its fur.

But to the fox's relief, it didn't lash out – even as he gently pulled the trembling ball of fluff and meat into his embrace. He pressed its back against his chest and locked all four paws around it, trapping it completely.

Then, he waited. His next move would depend on how the rabbit reacted.

For a moment, nothing happened.

All was still in the den of the fox.

Suddenly, to his shock, the rabbit did something completely unexpected: It _relaxed_.

It untensed its muscles. It even pressed _further_ into his chest.

He, a fox, was being cuddled by a rabbit.

Then, he heard it. The quiet sniffling sounds from before. Only they weren't so quiet anymore. And it wasn't just sniffling – the rabbit's whole body was trembling, and it's voice was making small, sad noises that his ears only just now started to hear.

_It's crying_ , he realized. _I've captured a rabbit in my den, caught it completely unawares, and it's crying. And now that I think about it, this rabbit has been crying the whole time._

If he wasn't baffled before, he was now. Completely, utterly befuddled.

The fox has heard rabbits make other noises before: pained squeaks, fearful chirps, surprised teeth-clicks. But he's never heard a rabbit _cry_ before.

He was at a loss for what to do about it.

_Do I even want it to stop?_ He thought to himself. _The longer it cries, the longer it'll take to realize what's going on._

If that happened, he was in for an uncomfortable night.

_On the other hand, it looks pretty worn-down already. If it cries itself out, it might fall asleep afterwards._

Wait and wing it, or caress into comfort?

He nodded once. _It looks like plan number two wins again._

Gently, he began to rock back and forth, settling into a slow rhythm of motion while one paw drifted upwards to rub its head.

At first, the rabbit only cried harder. Its body trembled heavily, its sniffles came faster, and its voice grew louder. But as he continued to rock, and as he moved his paw back and forth, the sniffles slowed, the trembling weakened, and the voice dimmed. Finally, all three stopped entirely

In his arms the rabbit slept peacefully, enjoying what might be its final slumber.

And around the rabbit slept a large fox, who hadn't even noticed himself drifting off into dreamworld.

He only had one final thought before sleep took him. _This is a dumb bunny_.


	2. Oblivious

When she woke, strong arms surrounded her, soft snores sounded through her ears, and gentle gusts of breath tickled their tips. One healthy heartbeat hummed in her chest and another hammered against her back. The two were in sync for the briefest moments before her waking one outpaced the sleeping one behind her.

Yawning slightly, the gray rabbit opened her eyes.

Purple pupils briefly perused the rabbit hole, perceiving almost nothing of note. The morning sun shone shallowly into the entrance, indirectly illuminating the dirt walls, the dirt floor, the dirt ceiling, and the dirty fur of herself and her hugger.

She sighed a little, sinking further into the fur of the mammal who had helped her through the night. She had been incredibly lucky to find such a kind rabbit when she needed one most.

Yesterday had been terrible, the worst day of her life so far. She shivered at the memories, shrinking in on herself, her back brushing more deeply against the buck's bare chest.

She didn't want to think about it, but it was hard to stop her thoughts from drifting back to those horrible howls, those terrifying teeth, and that sickening certainty that she would never see her family again. She had barely escaped, but everyone else-

 _No!_ she thought. She grabbed her ears and pulled them down in front of her eyes, as if to stop seeing the memories. But the images came regardless. No matter how much she blocked her vision, her mind's eye could not be closed. _Fine,_ she huffed in her head. _I'll just think about something else._

At first, that failed as well. There wasn't anything in the rabbit hole that her mind found more interesting than yesterday's memories. In fact, there wasn't anything at all – the hole was empty. The only thing it held was herself and...

 _That's it!_ she mentally cheered. _I'll think about the buck._

She knew it had to be male. No doe could be this large or this strong. She imagined his face was handsome and happy, but she hadn't actually seen it yet. From her position, she could only see the orange fur of his arms and the much darker orange on his hands – an unusual color for rabbits, as far as she knew. Some of her siblings were brown, which is technically dark orange, and others were tan. Her _father_ was tan. But none were orange.

 _That's okay_. _It would be wrong to judge a mammal by their fur color._

Then she noticed his nails. They were long – much longer than usual. They extended further than any nails she'd ever seen. They were also less blunt.

 _Odd,_ she thought. She reached out to touch one. Gently, she tapped the tip of his toenail, causing it to twitch. _I wonder why he keeps them so sharp._

Just as she began to wonder if she should wake him up, there was movement in her peripheral vision, followed by something fuzzy brushing up against her foot. Jutting her head forward just a little, she looked down to see what it was.

She froze.

It was a tail. A large, fluffy, _fox_ tail.

For only the briefest of moments, she wondered where this buck might have gotten a fox tail and why he slept with it. But when she thought about it – when she added _orange fur_ and _sharp nails_ and _strong arms_ and _fox tail_ together...

_No._

A wave of fear flushed through her head.

_Please no._

Her heart hammered in her chest.

_Not the nice buck who helped me._

Slowly, ever so slowly, she craned her neck upwards.

_Please!_

What she saw almost stopped her heart.

A black nose on an angled snout. Lips curling slightly around sharp teeth. Pointed ears shorter than hers.

The only thing that kept her from screaming, or making any other noise, was the certainty that she _did not_ want to wake him up. Wake _it_ up, rather, since she was no longer certain it was male. But that was a pointless quibble, the last coherent thought that went through her mind before everything was replaced with an instinctual, all-encompassing message: _GET AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN!_

She almost did exactly that, but she was barely sensible enough to realize that she should try sneaking away instead of leaping away. The longer the fox slept, the better her chances.

So she began the process of removing herself, careful not to move any one body part too much. She curled herself in a ball, disentangling rabbit legs from fox legs. Then, using her back as leverage, she pushed her feet through the gap between its hands and feet, followed by her legs, then her tail, then torso. She used her hands to push herself the rest of the way out.

She would have started running the moment her feet hit the ground, but she was met with searing pain the moment they did. Thankfully, she agonized quietly.

Her ankle, she now remembered, was swollen and sore. Last night she had been forced into a three-paw gait after twisting it.

Taking only a moment to recall how to move that way, she fell forward, lifting her burning foot as her hands met the ground. With only a single glance to confirm the fox still slept, she deftly departed the dirt hole.

* * *

The fox gave a massive yawn, his jaw opening wide. Rolling onto his stomach, he stretched his forepaws beyond his head and his rear paws below his tail, a single thought going through his mind: _Wow, I feel great!_

Apparently, going to sleep on a full stomach did wonders for his body, and having something so soft to hold did wonders for his mind.

_Wait a moment..._

His eyes snapped open.

_Where's the rabbit?_

* * *

She didn't relax until she had put a great deal of distance between herself and the fox den. She had found a river not far from it, following along upstream until the sun was almost halfway to its full height in the sky.

 _This should be far enough_ , she thought to herself. _Even if it tries to follow, it won't find me unless it picks exactly the right direction, which is impossible._

Something else might have helped her decide she had fled far enough: the clearing of trees nearby, the rocky shore forming the riverbed, and the small pond formed by the river had everything she needed to get back on her feet.

 _First thing's first_ , she thought. _Food._

She glanced around, looking for anything edible. Her eyes settled on a patch of grass. Then, she forced them to search for anything _else_ that was edible. They found nothing.

 _Haven't done this in a while_ , she thought. With a sigh, she hobbled over, leaned down, and began to graze. Grass was something all rabbits could eat, but she'd only ever seen wild ones, or those who just joined the clan, actually do it regularly. She had learned how, just in case there was ever a food shortage, but she hadn't touched the stuff since. _Too bland._

* * *

Tracking the rabbit had been ridiculously easy. He had a stronger lock on its scent than he could remember ever having on any prey in the past. He had followed its trail cautiously and quietly, not wanting to scare it off, or even to catch up too quickly. His stomach was still pretty full, and the more time he spent tracking, the less time he would spend waiting.

When he had finally seen the rabbit grazing on a patch of grass, he smirked to himself. _The hunt is on_ , he thought. On any other day, he _would_ have attacked then and there. Most rabbits kept their eyes open as they grazed, scanning for threats, but _this_ one closed its eyes, completely ignorant.

Unfortunately, the thought of spoiled meat was still at the forefront of his mind. It was still to early to pounce.

 _This rabbit is pretty oblivious_ , he had thought to himself. _I'm sure another opportunity will present itself._

And so, he had found a good hiding place – a small canopy of leaves on the edge of the clearing – and settled down to wait and observe.

* * *

Once the patch was gone and her stomach had something in it, she moved on to her next priority: her twisted ankle.

Her eyes scanned the clearing. _Let's see... there!_

She hobbled over to one of the younger trees, which was covered with vines. She inspected the ivy clinging to the bark. _This should do_.

Reaching up, she grabbed a single stem as high as she could manage, then pulled. Slowly, she yanked the parasitic plant from its perch. It made little _krick_ sounds each time a set of anchoring roots came free.

When she got to the base of the tree, she paused. She had no way to cut the vine free, no sharp tools to help her.

Setting down the weed for a moment, she limped over to the rocky shore on the edge of the pond. When she arrived, her eyes scanned the riverbed. It took very little time to find what she needed.

With a single rock curled in her fingers she hobbled, slightly more awkwardly this time, back to the tree. She sat down once she reached it and grasped the vine with her free hand. Using the sharpest edge of the sharpest rock she had seen, she quickly separated the plant from its roots.

She slid the length of ivy between her finger and thumb once it was cut loose, searching for any flaws or weak points. With a nod to herself, she set it down and stood. She repeated this process until the tree was free of ivy. By the end, she had four good vines and one bad.

Good vines in hand, she hobbled back to the rocky shore of the river. She had earlier seen a rock on the edge of the water – more than large enough to support her weight – and she approached it now with purpose.

She put the vines on its flat surface before seating herself right next to them.

Her twisted ankle, thankfully, was only twisted – not bruised, broken, or cut – and so she lowered it into the cool water of the river's pond. She sighed slightly when the burning sensation ebbed away with the small current, enjoying the feeling for just a moment.

Then, with her foot still in the water, she picked up one of the vines and began pruning it. She removed the leaves and roots, leaving only a brown length of stem. Then she moved on to the next vine. Then the next.

When the final stem was clear, she laid all four side-by-side.

 _Now comes the hard part,_ she thought. She had done this for her siblings before, but never herself.

Gently, she lifted her foot from the water. The swelling had diminished and the pain had mostly died down, but she knew they'd be back if she wasn't careful with what came next.

She picked up one of the vines – the shortest one – and slowly began wrapping it around her foot. She made loop after loop, starting above her ankle and moving downward. Once the first had been used up started on another, but this one she wrapped around the arch of her foot. The third she wrapped around her ankle again. The fourth and longest vine she wrapped more tightly than the rest, covering the entire ensemble, occasionally interlacing it with the other vines to keep the whole thing from falling apart. By the end, the only parts of her foot that remained unwrapped were her toes and her heel.

When she was finished, she gave her foot a little flex, lightly touching her fingers to her handiwork. _It looks good_ , she thought. _Now to see if it holds weight_.

She crawled across the rock until her feet were dangling over the side opposite the river. Keeping her weight anchored with her butt and her other three limbs, she slowly lowered the ivy-wrapped ankle to the rocky shore. She expected pain when it touched the ground, but only felt a light tingling sensation. Gaining confidence, she slowly added more and more of her weight until the tingling grew to a small, steady burn.

 _I can stand up at least_ , she thought to herself. _And I can run in emergencies. But I should probably avoid using it for a while._

With that in mind, she lowered herself down to all fours, bringing the burn back down to a tingle.

 _Next thing_ , she thought. _Defense_.

* * *

The fox had watched as the rabbit attempted to pull a vine off a tree, confused at the pointless action. He had watched the rabbit go to the river, hobbling in a way he'd never seen a rabbit move before. As it returned to the tree with a rock in its forepaw, he'd seen why: one of its legs was in the air, not touching the ground.

He had almost laughed aloud.

 _It's injured!_ He'd exulted. _It's oblivious, it's wounded, and it can't even walk right. Could this get any easier?_

The sound of a _thwack_ had brought his eyes back to the rabbit. For some reason, it seemed determined to detach that vine from its roots. And then another one. And then another...

 _What's it doing?_ He had asked himself. He could not fathom what was going through that rabbit's head, even as it returned to the river, dipped its foot in the water, fiddled with the vines, and did something with them that he couldn't, from his position, see.

It was only when the rabbit slid off the rock, barely wincing as it put a vine-wrapped paw on the ground, that he realized.

_It fixed its injury!_

The sudden understanding had shocked him almost as much as the rabbit's cuddling yesterday. In all his life, he had never seen a mammal do that, just like he had never seen a crying rabbit.

_Aren't you full of surprises?_

Now, as the rabbit approached one of the smallest saplings in the clearing, he watched with more curiosity than before. It was still completely oblivious to his presence, and it still walked with a small limp, so he doubted the fix would make his hunting any harder.

But now he wanted to see what the rabbit would do next.

* * *

She reached out and wrapped her fingers around the trunk of the young tree. They closed around it completely, her thumb and fingernails touching.

 _Perfect,_ she thought.

Stooping, she grasped two rocks in her hands, putting her weight on them briefly so she could sit down.

The rock in her left hand had taken her the longest to find because it had three important features: first, it had a sharp edge; second, opposite the sharp edge was a wide, flat face; third, she could easily hold it so the sharp end was facing one way and the flat side was facing the other. The important thing was for her fingers to stay clear from the danger zones.

With the sharp rock angled at the bottom of the sapling, she raised the rock in her right hand; this one wasn't special, it was just big and heavy. Taking a moment to aim, she drew a deep breath, then brought it down hard on the first rock's flat face, sending the edge into the tree with a loud _CLACK_. She quickly fell into a steady rhythm, the _CLACK CLACK CLACK_ of her rocks echoing around the clearing, digging further and further into the tree with each strike.

When she felt she had made enough progress on that side, she picked herself up, moved a fourth of the way around the tree, sat down, and began again.

The work was difficult but steady. It was relaxing in a way, for her mind if not her body. She always enjoyed a good session of clear, focused work.

All too soon, she was on the fourth side and the sapling was beginning to tilt unsteadily. Before it could fall over she dropped her rocks, grabbed the trunk, and began twisting. With a loud _SNAP_ , the tree came free.

 _Well_ , she thought with a smile. _That's step one._

* * *

The fox watched with wide eyes as the tree was pulled from the ground.

 _Holy crap!_ He looked at the rabbit with a bit of apprehension. He had just witnessed a small, injured rabbit take on a tree twice its size. And win. Yes, it had the aid of two rocks, but had otherwise done it alone. _I know wolves who couldn't to do that,_ he thought. _A_ bear _would have trouble doing that._

A series of snapping sounds brought his attention back to the rabbit. It had relocated, sitting down against one of the larger trees, its conquest resting in its lap. It now seemed to be removing everything from the sapling except the main shaft. The rabbit ignored the larger branches at first, going down the length of the sapling and twisting off the smaller limbs. When they were all gone, the rabbit picked up the rocks from earlier and started hacking away at the larger ones.

The fox had no idea what the rabbit intended to do, but he decided that it was only a matter of time before he figured it out, just like with the vines.

This part of the rabbit's plan took much longer than anything else it had done so far. It took so much time, in fact, that the fox had to leave briefly so he could relieve himself.

When he returned, the rabbit was still there, still working. It was slowly dragging the sharp edge of the rock along the trunk, carving off one strip of wood at a time. The tree looked much smoother now, and the end that used to be jutted with branches was completely bare and straight, coming to a sharp point.

Not long after he settled down, the rabbit dropped the rock and inspected its work. It ran its fingers along the wood, tracing the whole length of the tree. Then it nodded in seeming satisfaction.

 _That's it?_ he thought incredulously. _All that work for a sharp stick?_

The fox looked at the position of the sun. This rabbit had just spent the entire rest of the morning and much of the afternoon making a stick.

 _Great_ , he rolled his eyes. _I forgot that I was watching a dumb bunny._

* * *

She looked over her spear, nodding in contentment at her handiwork. It wasn't what she was used to, but it would have to do. It would also serve as a decent walking stick. It was almost twice the length of her body, so she didn't have to worry about stabbing herself.

 _Next comes shelter_ , she thought. Like eating grass, making a home out of dirt is something she only ever learned how to do in case of emergencies. She groaned. _I'm going to have to dig a burrow, aren't I?_

* * *

The fox watched on in mild interest. The rabbit was currently digging out a hole in the side of a small hill on the edge of the clearing.

He'd never actually seen a prey critter making a home before, so he decided that he might learn something important from watching her.

Yes, he now knew the rabbit was female. She had relieved her bladder at one point, and he had caught enough rabbits in his day to know how to spot that difference. It was an area he avoided eating, especially whenever he caught a male. Still, he might have figured it out even if she hadn't answered nature's call, what with her habit of walking everywhere on two paws instead of four. She seemed to prefer it despite her injury, using her stick to support herself, for reasons he couldn't understand. She even tried to move the dirt away from her new home walking that way, with one paw holding dirt and the other holding her stick. Needless to say, it wasn't long before she was back on all fours, sacrificing her weird preference for speed.

The fox's stomach grumbled as she worked, startling him. He glanced up at the sun, which was now settling well into late afternoon. He had been watching for so long, he almost forgot why he was there in the first place. He glanced back at the rabbit, who was walking back to the river, stick still in its paws.

 _I guess it's almost time,_ he thought to himself, a little disappointed. There wasn't much to do in the life of a fox except hunt, eat, and sleep. The rabbit had broken that dull cycle, giving him something new to do. _Maybe I should just leave her be for now._ He eyed the rabbit hole. _I know where she lives. I can set up an ambush whenever I want._

His imagination indulged in the idea a bit, thinking about what the day-to-day life of this unusual rabbit might contain. He thought about how he would hide in this spot, learning something new and useful every day, like the trick with the vines, followed by something completely useless, like the trick with the stick. He thought about how patient he would be, how long he would drag out the hunt, keeping his prey alive and ignorant until he had nothing left to gain.

But it didn't take long for him to dismiss the fantasy.

 _I still need to eat,_ he thought. _Plus, that hole might just be temporary. And even if it's not, she'll have a much easier time escaping once her leg heals._

He was curious about the rabbit, but not curious enough to sacrifice his chances at an easy meal.

He looked at the rabbit, which now stood on the rocky shore of the river. She was crouching down where the river flowed into the pond, looking into the miniature rapids.

 _Well,_ he thought with finality. _Now's as good a time as any_.

He stood from his hiding spot and stalked forward, creeping through the near-umbra provided by the underbrush. As he approached the river, his ears began to pick up on the little _splish_ and _splash_ noises of water. As he came closer still, he heard something else, something familiar: little huffing sounds, coming from the rabbit. She was crying again, it seemed.

 _She's distracted,_ thought the fox. _Perfect._

But even as those words went through his head, the rabbit stood from her crouch.

He froze, wondering if she'd heard him.

But her ears hadn't twitched in his direction, and she was still facing the river.

The fox glanced briefly at the water in front of her, seeing only silvery reflections beneath the surface, before his eyes settled back on the rabbit. Looking closely, he noticed the paw holding the stick was clenched tight and trembling.

Then, with loud noise he had never heard before, the rabbit raised the stick above its head and stabbed it into the water. Then, still making that strange noise, she did it again. And again. And again.

The fox was confused at first, trying to understand the unfamiliar sight. He looked at her squinting eyes, her harsh jabs, and her white-knuckled grip on the stick. He listened to the barks of noise, the thudding of the one paw that supporting her weight against the ground, and the splashing sounds made by the stick.

With sudden insight he realized what he was seeing and hearing. _She's angry_ , he thought. _That's new. Yesterday I heard a rabbit cry for the first time, and today I hear one shout for the first time. I didn't know rabbits_ could _get angry_.

The fox watched as the rabbit continued to stab at the water, thinking that maybe he should wait until she settles down before ambushing her. She was still technically distracted, but now it was in a way that carried risks. He didn't want to get kicked, or bitten, or poked with that sharp stick.

 _Maybe that's what it's for_ , he realized. _She could do some serious damage if she hit me with that_.

Then, just as suddenly as she had started, the rabbit stopped stabbing the water. She was now panting, the stick drooping in her hands. She hefted it up, glaring fiercely at the sharp end, which was – to his amazement – now covered with fish. With a yell much louder than all the ones that had come before, she hurled the stick away from herself, then began throwing rocks into the water instead.

The stick flew through the air in a graceful arc, stabbing the ground not far from where he'd frozen in place, just outside the underbrush.

The fox looked at the stick, which held more fish than he could have caught if he'd spent the entire day doing nothing else. Which the rabbit had caught in moments. He looked at the rabbit, who was still angrily throwing rocks into the pond, then back to the stick.

An idea was slowly forming in his mind, accompanied by a grin that was slowly sliding across his muzzle.

* * *

A small _snap_ sound broke her from her trance. She had been staring up at the orange sky, her back on the large flat rock, her anger run dry long ago. She bolted upright, facing the sound, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. She waited, looking for any signs of movement, and eventually let out a breath.

 _Maybe just a tree branch falling_ , she thought. _Still, I should have my spear with me, just in case_.

She sat up and swung her legs around the edge of the rock, wincing only slightly when her feet touched the ground. She dropped to all fours to lessen the pain, then padded down towards the clearing of trees, where she'd thrown her spear earlier.

She searched briefly, then found it sticking up from the dirt near the underbrush. She picked it up, inspecting for damage, then set the blunt end on the ground, pushing herself back up on two feet.

 _I should probably settle in for the night_ , she thought, looking up to the setting sun. She couldn't actually see it, but based on the color of the sky, sunset would soon be over, meaning it wouldn't be long before predators came out to hunt.

As she plodded back to her little burrow, she failed to notice that her spear – which had stabbed many fish earlier – now stabbed nothing but air.


	3. Deal

The fox watched the rabbit retreat into her burrow, setting down her stick as she did by propping it over the entrance.

 _Like I thought_ , he smirked. He had scouted out the rabbit hole earlier, while the rabbit had been fuming at the river. He had a good idea of the size and layout. _The stick is too long to fit inside comfortably._

This meant that he didn't have to worry about getting poked.

Even after the rabbit had disappeared completely, the fox waited. He wanted to make sure she had truly settled first.

After he was fairly certain she wouldn't come out again, he approached. He did so silently, but not stealthily. The rabbit's ears would be more likely to notice him than her eyes at this point, so he put more effort into his paw placements than overall visibility.

Upon reaching the entrance, he didn't hesitate. He didn't want to give the rabbit any chance to escape. So, in a single, smooth motion, he slapped the stick aside and shoved his arms, head, and torso into the hole.

In his mouth was a fish – the only one still uneaten.

"Hi," he said around it, a giant grin on his face.

* * *

_"Yip."_

The sudden noise almost gave her a heart attack, and when she looked up, so too did the face of a fox.

She screamed.

* * *

The fox winced slightly at the noise. _This shorty sure can shout_ , he thought.

The proximity probably wasn't doing him any favors either.

"Hey, hey, quiet down," he whined, his ears beginning to ring.

This did not, in fact, get her to quiet down. If anything, her screaming only seemed to gain strength.

"I said _quiet_ , not _get louder_ ," he complained, pressing his ears to his skull.

This didn't work either.

So he did the first thing that came to mind: the fox shot a paw forward, covering her mouth and stopping her screaming. He could still feel her voice vibrating through his arm, and still hear a bit of shrieking, but at least he could hear himself think again.

He spat out the fish into his other paw.

"Shush!" he said clearly, his own voice no longer muffled by scales and flesh.

This finally seemed to get her attention, causing the vibrations running through his paws to die down.

When they had stopped completely, he removed his paw and brought it to his chin. He rested his head on the appendage.

"I have to say, rabbit," he said, casually. "You make a pretty good hunter." He lifted the fish in front of him, dangling it from its tail and displaying the hole through its side.

The rabbit looked terrified, glancing only once at the fish before her eyes settled firmly back on him.

"You're so good, in fact," he continued, "that I'm going to offer you a deal."

He watched her as he said it, but she failed to do anything new. She just continued to tremble in place.

"You bring me fish to eat," he said, wiggling the one in his hand, "and I don't eat you." He grinned widely, showing all his teeth. "That's a pretty good deal, isn't it?"

She looked at him, still saying nothing, though she had flinched and her trembling had worsened when she caught sight of his teeth.

He waited for her to respond. The silence stretched.

And stretched...

"Well?" he finally asked, looking at her expectantly.

* * *

_"Yip?"_

Her instincts continued to scream uselessly at her.

She didn't know why the fox was just sitting there. She had no idea what was going on. She thought, from the sounds it was making, that it might be trying to talk to her, but she had no idea what it was saying.

Her fear was impossible to ignore, especially when the fox narrowed its eyes. If it was getting impatient, she might not have much longer to live.

She hoped – prayed – that it was expecting her to say something back as she opened her own mouth, asking in a shaky voice: "What do you want?"

* * *

_"Chff tck clck?"_

The fox, finally getting a response, sighed in annoyance.

 _I should have remembered I'm talking to a dumb bunny,_ he chided himself. _She can't even understand words. So much for this being easy._

But the fox was clever. He would find a way to communicate his offer, one way or another. Thinking only briefly, he decided he would keep things as simple as possible.

First, he removed his paw from under his chin, keeping his elbow on the ground for support.

The rabbit's eyes tracked his every move, which was good.

Next, he brought the fish slightly closer to the rabbit, displaying the gaping hole through its side.

The rabbit's eyes continued to track him, again glancing only briefly at the fish.

Even as he put the fish in between his face and hers, he could see, through the hole in the fish, purple eyes tracking him. More specifically, they watched the claws of his paws, now that his face was obscured.

 _I can work with that,_ he thought.

He raised his free paw with slow, deliberate movements, keeping it away from the skittish rabbit as he used a single digit to point at the fish.

She focused on the fish a bit more firmly this time. Her trembling tapered off briefly, but when her eyes met his through the hole in the middle, it un-tapered right back on again.

He lowered the fish so it no longer obscured his face, trying to read her expression.

Her gaze left the area of the fish the moment he lowered it, but her emotions were hard to measure. Aside from fear, he couldn't pick up on much else. There might have been confusion there, or there might not have been.

So he tried to be even more obvious.

He used his own gaze to glance significantly at the fish, using his claw to point specifically at the hole in its center.

He had to do this twice more before the rabbit reacted at all, but when she did, her distress diminished again.

 _At least she's reacting this time,_ he conceded. _Now, to put this as plainly as possible, so that even the dumbest bunny can understand..._

First, he pointed at the rabbit, using the claw that had been pointing at the trout. This brought back the fear, but he ignored it.

"You," he said aloud.

Next, he glanced significantly at the fish and withdrew his free paw.

When she focused on it, he used his pointing claw to pierce the vertebrate with a _squelsh_ , right through the opening.

"Hunt," he said, watching the rabbit flinch as his digit entered its flesh.

Finally, he used the claw on his freshly freed paw to point at the drooping, smelly ichthyoid.

"The fish."

When she failed to show any signs of comprehension, he repeated himself.

He removed his claw from the fish, holding it aloft by the tail again, then pointed at her.

"You."

His claw stabbed the hole.

"Hunt."

His other claw pointed at its body.

"The fish."

Again, she only seemed confused.

Point. "You." Stab. "Hunt." Point. "Th-"

He saw it, the moment she understood. Her eyes widened, her trembling stopped altogether, and her gaze shifted firmly to...

"-e fish."

The fox grinned. _Finally_.

He removed the fish from his digit, dangling it once again and pointing directly at the hole.

Though she flinched again, her gaze remained on the fish.

_Now for the important part._

This time, he pointed at himself, drawing her attention back to him.

"I," he said aloud.

He opened his mouth, pointing down his throat.

She trembled terribly at this, but continued watching.

"Eat," he said.

Then he pointed at his prop again.

"The fish."

He repeated.

"I," pointing at himself.

"Eat," pointing at his open mouth.

"The fish," pointing at the dead meat.

This, too, she seemed to understand after repetition.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the sort of understanding he'd been hoping for.

Her head swiveled side to side, not as a result of her trembling, but as clear, deliberate message.

He frowned, initially annoyed at the dumb bunny, then paused. Maybe a head shake meant something different for rabbits?

 _Well,_ he thought, _I know how to check that._

He pointed at himself again.

"I."

He pointed at his mouth, showing as many teeth as possible.

"Eat."

This time, he pointed his claw directly at her.

" _You_ ," he said with a growl.

This time she seemed to get it in one, her trembling returned full force, every trace of emotion except fear fleeing from her face. Her eyes were now scrunched shut, the only sign she had understood him – besides the fear itself and the little whimpering noises coming from her mouth – was her furious head shaking.

He was both relieved and annoyed. Relieved that she had understood him, but annoyed that...

 _So it_ does _mean the same thing, so she_ was _telling me "no" earlier._

He tried repeating his initial offer of "I eat fish," but the rabbit was much too scared to follow, not to mention her eyes were shut.

 _That's inconvenient,_ he thought. In the short amount of time this 'conversation' had taken so far, he'd begun to notice the correlation between how much fear was on display and how little she understood him: the worse the fear, the less understanding. _So I have to calm her down first. Great._

With a sigh, the fox oscillated on how to overcome this new obstacle.

_Well, if I want her to calm down, then I should do the opposite of what makes her alarmed._

He paused.

_What has alarmed her so far?_

He tried to remember. So far he had... entered her home, which alarmed her extremely, though that could have mostly been the initial shock of surprise. Then he had shown her his teeth and claws, which also scared her. Finally, he'd growled at her, which had distressed her more than anything else he'd done.

 _What_ hasn't _alarmed her so far?_

Talking to her didn't seem to have any effect at all, which at least meant it wouldn't agitate her. Getting her attention on the fish seemed to calm her, although that might have been due to the fact that she wasn't focusing on him at that exact moment. Getting her to think about and understand his messages (before the last one) had also had a pacifying effect, though again that could just mean her attention wasn't on him.

 _It makes sense,_ a part of him thought. _All prey panic at the presence of a predator. They're only calm when they aren't thinking about us. When they think they're safe._

That... wasn't an option, in this case. He wasn't leaving until she understood his deal, which meant she wouldn't feel safe.

 _But I did manage to get this far,_ he thought. _She doesn't need to feel safe enough to relax, just safe enough to think._

Seeing no other workable options, the fox sighed. He already knew what alarmed the rabbit, so if he stopped doing those things for a while, she might calm down.

_That means I need to... stop showing teeth, stop showing claws, and put as much distance between us as I can. Without letting her escape, that is. Also, I can't growl at any time._

The fox nodded once to himself, thinking it was a good idea.

Slowly, he retreated from the rabbit hole until only his head and forepaws remained inside. He closed his mouth, retracted his claws, and just for good measure, rested his head on his forearms with a bored expression.

He watched the rabbit the entire time, just in case she tried to do anything, and just in case his idea worked immediately.

It did not.

It wasn't until the sun had set – judging from the amount of light reaching the inside of this burrow – that the rabbit seemed to understand he wasn't going to attack her.

When he judged her visible fear to be low enough, he raised himself up on his elbows again, very slowly. Very unagressively. He stayed in that position for a time, waiting for her level of calmness to drop back to what it had been before he'd moved.

Finally, he repeated his message, first pointing at himself.

"I."

He opened his mouth, but this time his lips were down and his teeth (hopefully) wouldn't show. He was also careful not to open his mouth very wide.

"Eat."

He pointed at flesh and scales.

"Fish."

When she began shaking her head again, he barely kept himself from growling.

Instead he began nodded himself, trying to convey _Yes, I DO eat fish, you dumb bunny_.

That seemed to give her pause, but then she continued shaking her head.

He frowned, then repeated his third message, the one that had set her off. He tried to keep his anger in check, keeping his face as relaxed as possible as he acted out "I eat you," but he knew she would react badly regardless.

Although this time, when she was furiously shaking, he had an idea. If he wanted to make a deal where he would eat fish and not her, he needed to communicate that at some point.

So, as she shook her head, this time with her eyes open instead of closed – a result of his calmer delivery, no doubt – he shook his own head, as if to say _I DON'T eat you._

This, to his surprise, seemed to work. It surprised her enough that confusion now clearly warred with the fear on her face.

 _That's good,_ he thought. _It means I don't have to wait for her to calm down again_.

He mimed "I eat fish" once again, nodding his own head to convey what he wanted.

Seeing this, she finally seemed to understand the basic idea of what he wanted her response to be. She hesitated, clearly reluctant, but eventually she nodded her own head.

The fox grinned widely, then closed his lips again the moment she flinched at the sight of his teeth. He was still grinning without showing teeth when he combined the two things she understood so far.

"You hunt fish." Then, "I eat fish."

She seemed to understand, though she only agreed with the second part.

The fox ignored that for now, focusing on the final part of his offer.

He reached out in her direction, watching her fear spike as his paw approached her. Even without claws extended, it seemed the proximity was enough to set her off. He didn't pay it any mind, focusing only on his message. He grabbed her forepaw, bringing her to a whole new level of terror. Finally, he put the fish in her paw and retracted his own.

He waited patiently for her to calm down again.

She only seemed to notice the fish in her paw after she felt safe enough to think again.

"You," he said, pointing at her and interrupting any thoughts she might have been forming on her own.

"Give the fish," he said, moving his pointing claw from her to it.

"To me," he finished, pointing at himself.

He then holding out his own paw, digits splayed open as if ready to accept a gift.

She looked between fish and fox, then quickly held the fish away from herself.

Taking this as a good sign, the fox removed the fish from her grasp. (He completely failed to notice the look of disgust on her face when she'd been holding the fish, though he did notice the flinch as his paw briefly touched hers.)

 _Now to put it all together,_ he thought.

He acted out "you hunt fish", "you give me fish", and "I eat fish" in sequence. Then he did it again just for emphasis, even though she seemed to understand the first time around.

The rabbit, at the end of it, was looking between the fish and the fox. She did not nod assent like he had hoped she would. But she wasn't shaking her head either, at least.

Finally, she began moving her paw, extending one of her own digits at him.

His eyes widened in surprise. It seemed she had a message of her own.

 _This should be interesting,_ he thought. He hadn't considered that she might do anything besides nod or shake her head. _Let's see what she has to say_.

He nodded once, saying "I" out loud and pointing at himself to show he understood.

Her paw moved from him to her now-open mouth, revealing flat teeth and a small tongue.

"Eat," he said, recognizing the same gesture he had used.

She pointed at him again – no, at the _fish_ – he held in his paw.

"The fish."

When he put it together, he grinned widely, again without showing teeth, and began nodding enthusiastically.

"Yes!"

_She understands!_

Then, to his surprise, she continued with the message, moving her paw away from the fish and back to him.

"I," he said.

She pointed to her mouth.

"Eat."

Then, to his surprise, she pointed to herself. She trembled terribly as she did it, but her eyes remained fixed on his.

"You?" he said, his own voice rising in confusion.

That was strange. Did she _want_ him to eat her?

 _No!_ he realized. _That was a question!_

He quickly began shaking his head, then pointed at the fish. "I eat fish," he said, quickly acting out the message. Then, he acted out the whole sequence. "You hunt fish, you give me fish, I eat fish."

She looked at him for a long moment, then acted out her questions again.

"You eat fish?" she seemed to ask, using only her paws to communicate.

He nodded, once again saying "yes" out loud.

"You eat me?" she mimed.

He shook his head. "No."

Then, for the last time, he acted out the deal he was offering. "You catch fish, you give me fish, I eat fish."

For the final part of the message, instead of pointing at anything, he just ate the ichthyoid, swallowing it whole in a single bite.

She seemed to understand, though she flinched when he chomped the trout.

 _I don't need it anymore_ , he thought. _She gets the gist of it._

She was silent – or, rather, noncommunicative – as she thought about it, seeming to consider his offer.

Finally, _finally_ , she nodded.

 _Yes!_ He triumphed, smiling. _She agreed!_

He looked at the rabbit, wondering how to convey that she made the right choice. After a moment of consideration, he reached out and patted her on the head, completely ignoring the reaction he knew it would get.

He was ready to leave, having accomplished his goal, but a thought occurred to him just as he was about to pull out.

_What if she's just trying to get me to leave?_

Rabbits, as a general rule, would do anything to escape a fox. And even if this bunny was dumber than most, the fox had to admit that she was clever in certain ways.

_What if she's lying?_

Originally, she didn't want him to eat fish. Or she didn't want to hunt fish for him, he wasn't sure. Either way, she had taken a while to change her mind.

 _But she might not have_ actually _changed her mind_ , he thought. _She might just want me to_ think _that. Then, she runs away, covers her tracks better, and I never find her again._

The fox could see it happening – he could see himself being outsmarted by the bunny that had taken down a tree – and he didn't like it.

_So how do I prevent her from just running away?_

The answer came to him as soon as he asked the question.

_I have to stay here to keep an eye on her._

But that came with its own set of problems.

 _I don't want to stay like this all night,_ he thought. Too much of his body was outside the burrow, too exposed to the elements. _If I'm going to stay..._

Slowly, another grin crept across his lips.

The burrow might be too small for the stick, but that was due to the stick's length, not width.

With a sudden motion that startled the rabbit, he pulled himself the rest of the way inside her little burrow. It was a very tight squeeze, but he could live with that.

She, apparently, could not.

The rabbit began screaming loudly, sending a jolt of pain through his ears.

His paw shot up without a second thought, silencing her as surely as it had before. Then, on second thought, his other paws went forward as well, trapping her just like he had yesterday.

 _Unlike_ yesterday, she didn't relax.

At all.

She couldn't scream around his paw, but she _could_ bite it.

"Ow!" he yelped, quickly retracting his paw, only to bring it back when the shouting resumed. It took him a moment to cover her mouth in a way that didn't allow for biting.

And that was when the kicking began.

She could only use one hind paw, but she wasn't completely powerless.

"Oof!" It took him much longer to find a way to hold her that didn't allow for that. After much scrambling and much pain, he finally had the rabbit pinned down, somewhat quiet and mostly helplessly.

" _There!_ " he said. "No more kicking and biting."

And that was when her paws began to scratch at his paw – the one covering her mouth, not the others.

"Ah ah ah," he said. "I'm not going to let you start screaming again."

But her grasping paws didn't last very long. She seemed to be losing strength very quickly, then she stopped moving altogether.

 _Why-?_ He thought for an almost-fatal moment before common sense kicked in. _She needs to breathe!_

He quickly removed his paw from her mouth.

The deep breath that came immediately after, followed by a gasping cough, confirmed his guess.

 _Whoops_ , he thought, slightly chagrined. _I didn't mean to suffocate her._

He winced as the retching sounds continued.

_I'm going to have to be more careful. This bunny is fragile; I can't have her dying before she catches any fish. Especially after I spent all that time convincing her._

With some reluctance, he loosened his death-grip on the bunny's body, keeping his paws in position in case she started kicking again but not doing anything else with them.

As the hacking noises slowly evened out into normal breathing, he waited to see if she would start screaming again.

But she did not. Nor did she start kicking. Instead, she only turned her head, glaring at him.

He might have apologized if he knew how, but then again, it _had_ been partly her fault in the first place. So instead, he simply raised the paw that had been covering her mouth and patted her head, smiling.

The anger this produced was easily the cutest thing he had ever seen, and he only smiled more, this time revealing teeth.

Her flinch and shivering body were predictable, but nowhere near the level of outright panic.

With a final pat to her forehead, he lowered his paw back down, his body and hers in exactly the same position as yesterday. Only this time his back was to the _entrance_ of the burrow, not the other way around, nor was there enough room for her to escape.

When it was clear he wasn't leaving, but also clear he wouldn't be doing anything else, the rabbit went back to glaring at him, though her body still shivered.

The fox ignored her, closing his eyes and pretending to go to sleep.

It didn't take long for the pretense to become reality, the predator completely relaxed in the presence of his natural prey.

The bunny, on the other hand, was in for a rough night, completely unsettled in the presence of her natural predator.


	4. Argument

Today it was the fox who woke first.

Though he couldn't stretch himself out, the fox felt just as good upon waking as he had yesterday morning, if not better.

He had gone to sleep again on a full stomach and again with a bundle of fluff – one that had not escaped, this time. The rabbit still seemed to be asleep in his paws: her eyes were closed, her breathing was even, and her heartbeat was steady.

For a time the fox just laid there, enjoying the bliss of the morning while wondering what he would do this day.

He had thought, yesterday evening, that he would leave the rabbit to her own devices until he was hungry. This would let him watch the rabbit do more clever tricks, just like he had first fantasized.

Now he was less optimistic, and he wondered how much he'd be able to stick to that plan.

For starters, the rabbit might act differently now that she knew he was around. It was still a good deal if she only stuck to fish hunting, but it would be better if she did more than that. Even if she only ever made things for herself, he could still learn through observation.

Then there was the hunting itself.

Should he make her catch fish whenever he got hungry, or have her do it all at once?

It was tempting to imagine her at his beck and call, answering to the whims of his stomach, but he got the feeling this would foster rebellion instead of obedience. Not to mention that if she _did_ decide to make more things with him around, interrupting her work all the time might put a stop to that.

So he decided it would be best if she only hunted once per day. Besides, if the past two days were any indication, going to sleep on a completely full stomach was good for his health. Also good for his health was not getting stabbed by the stick, which was the final thing to consider: it was dangerous to let the rabbit have a way to hurt him, but she wouldn't be able to hunt fish without it.

It was a tricky dilemma with no easy answers. No stick, no fish. Yes stick, more risk.

He could, he supposed, keep the stick away from her until it was time for trout, but she could always make another stick if he did. He could stop her from making any more sticks, but that might stop her from making anything else. Plus, even if he only let her have the stick during his mealtimes, she could always just wait until she was hunting the fish to turn it against him.

And the worst part was that he was almost certain the stick helped her feel safe.

The fact that she spent so long making it and the fact that she built it before making her _own home_ said something significant about her priorities. The only things she put before the stick were food and her injury, both of which are understandably more important. But shelter? That should have come third, but it didn't.

_If she feels safe, she makes things. If she has the stick, she feels safe. So what do I do? Just let her keep a way of hurting me on paw at all times?_

The fox thought about this question for a long time. He thought for so long, in fact, that the little bunny had begun to stir by the time he finally made his decision.

_She keeps the stick for now. But if she tries to poke me, I take it._

The fox watched as the bunny's mouth gaped in a little yawn, her eyes fluttering open as her mouth closed again. He could see this because he had extended his head beyond her face, twisting it slightly to the side so one eye could watch her.

When her gaze met his, she seemed to come fully awake in an instant: her muscles tensed, her eyes focused, and her heart beat rapidly.

Again, the fox wondered how he should proceed. He had just finished thinking about his plans for the day, but had completely neglected any plans for the immediate future. Immediate being _right now._

He looked into her eyes, wondering if she remembered last night, or if the reaction was just because he was a fox.

Then she glared at him, answering that question.

He grinned in return, careful not to show any teeth, and slowly released her.

_She doesn't look like she's going to scream, but if she tries kicking again-_

He mentally stumbled. What _would_ he do if she started kicking? She had to know it was a bad idea by now, but he didn't know the appropriate way of dealing with it after last night's near-disaster.

 _-I'll make her regret it,_ he finished, unable to come up with anything better than that.

Thankfully, he wouldn't have to come up with any cruel and unusual punishments just yet. The worst she did was glare, which he found cute more than anything else.

When she was completely free from his paws, she pushed herself against the far end of the burrow, still giving him the stink eye. She also crossed her two forepaws over each other, in front of her torso.

It didn't look like she was trying to keep him from seeing something. It looked more like some kind of posture or message, but he couldn't figure out what it was supposed to mean.

He tried doing it himself, even giving her a half-hearted glare in return, just to see if it would elicit out of her the reaction she expected from him.

She immediately deflated, her eyes widening and her body cowering.

He realized instantly. _It's supposed to be intimidating!_

He thought the glare was cute, but this was too much.

He burst out laughing, his eyes forced shut by his mirth. It didn't last long at first, but when he opened his eyes again, and when he saw her arms crossed again (this time understanding the context), his laughter lasted much longer.

She seemed to be absolutely fuming by the time his chortles had dimmed to chuckles again. Her one good foot tapped furiously on the ground, making a rapid _thudthudthudthudthud_ noise.

This easily topped yesterday as the _new_ cutest thing he's ever seen.

He couldn't help himself. Retracting his claws, he reached out and pinched her cheek with his paw digits, wiggling it a little like his mother used to do to him whenever she found his play-aggression too adorable.

This gesture, it seemed, was also shared between bunnies and foxes, for when she recovered from her instinctive flinch and realized what he had done, she actually screamed out loud.

It was short and angry, not drawn-out or ear-splitting – born from frustration, not fear.

The fox only grinned more, reaching out again.

He had been aiming to pet her head, but his paw was slapped away before it could even reach a single pat.

He yelped (in surprise, not pain) and quickly withdrew it.

The rabbit was speaking now, her mouth a flurry of clicks and chatters and chuffs that he couldn't understand in the slightest. The chattering went on for a while.

He tilted his head when she was finished, as if to convey he hadn't made heads or tails of a single thing.

She snapped.

With a single digit shooting forward, accompanied by a single click, she pointed firmly at him. Then, with the same digit, and this time with a loud chuff, she pointed beyond him.

The message was clear: You. Out.

The fox frowned. He had been about to leave anyway, but now that the rabbit was telling him to go, he had the sudden urge to stay right where he was.

So, he shook his head.

The rabbit screamed again, then repeated her message, only with a much louder click and chuff.

YOU. OUT.

What the fox wanted to do was ask why he should, but since he had no way to convey that, the best he could manage was an exaggerated shrug with a dismissive snort. He hoped the attitude would be clear, if not the exact message.

This did seem to give the rabbit some pause, but not because she was any less angry. Her eyes scrunched shut, her brows drawn firmly in a scowl of furious thinking. When she opened her eyes again, her face was less angry, but determined.

She pointed at him, again with that click that possibly meant "you".

The fox raised an eyebrow.

The rabbit's paw moved to her mouth. It did _not_ , however, point between tongue and tooth in the symbol for eating. Instead, the paw covered her mouth completely.

The fox's raised eyebrow lowered, along with the other one. He tilted his head again, not understanding. _I... make her not talk?_ was the best his mind could conjure.

He could tell that the rabbit could tell he didn't understand.

Without pause, she brought up her other paw to her neck and made exaggerated choking sounds. She followed it up by collapsing to the ground. She added a few fake hacking gasps afterward.

It should have been funny, but the bunny had somehow managed to pull it off without looking completely ridiculous. And the message had been clear, too: strangulation. Like he had done to her last night.

Then, also like he had done yesterday, she acted out her first complete sentence.

First, she pointed at him, making that same tongue-click as before. _"You,"_ he could almost imagine her saying.

Then she covered her mouth with exaggerated acting, making a click-huff. _"Strangled."_

Finally, she pointed at herself, chattering her teeth together a single time. _"Me."_

There was a pause.

The fox considered his options, now that he understood her. She _was_ right, he _had_ strangled her.

Worse, he had done it immediately after promising _not_ to attack her – well, not to _eat_ her, specifically, but that implied not attacking. The promise may have been conditional, but she hadn't broken the conditions. And she probably felt like _he_ had.

For a moment, the fox considered backing down. It would be the easy way out: just give her space and leave her alone for the morning. But that would mean letting her _win_.

So instead, he nodded slowly, trying to convey both his understanding and his concession that she was right about the strangling, but not moving from his spot in front of the burrow's entrance.

The rabbit shouted something else he couldn't understand, then click-pointed at him again. _"You."_

This time, she made a motion that almost looked like pouncing, but without forward movement. She spread her three good paws away from her body, then brought them together, seeming to surround something. The fox didn't understand exactly what the chuff-tut sound meant. It could have been "grab" or "pounce" or "hug," but he got the basic idea.

Finally the rabbit pointed at herself, this time with a teeth-chatter. _"Me."_

_"You grabbed/pounced/hugged me."_

The fox nodded, still not moving. He understood. Now, how to respond...

The fox pointed at himself.

"I."

Then he used two claws to point at his eyes, widening them significantly.

"Watch."

Then, he pointed at her.

"You."

The rabbit didn't appear to have any trouble understanding the message, but she did appear to have every trouble accepting it.

Shaking her head strongly, she once again acted out _"You strangled me,"_ as if to say that strangling was _not_ watching.

The fox moved to respond, but then he remembered _why_ he had (accidentally!) strangled her. This changed his intended rejoinder completely.

He pointed at her.

"You."

He brought his pointing digit to his mouth, making an exaggerated biting motion.

"Bite."

He pointed at himself.

"Me."

If the fox hadn't been so focused, he might have marveled at how the two now seemed to understand each other without repetitions, or how the rabbit didn't flinch at the sight of his teeth.

Instead, he watched as she signed out her next message, which was almost an exact repeat of "You strangle me," only this time her mouth made a different sound for "strangle," and she didn't quite act out any struggling motions.

 _"You covered my mouth,"_ or something like it.

The fox had an easy reply to this. He pointed at her, said "you," then simply raised his voice in a high-pitched scream. After that, he made as if to cover his ears. Finally, he finished with a glare. He didn't accompany the rest of the message with words.

The rabbit pulled her ears down to cover her face – a gesture he had never seen before – and screamed into them. The fluff seemed to muffle the noise.

He winced anyway. Didn't that _hurt_? He thought rabbit ears were _sensitive_.

He also wasn't sure if this was a message or not. She hadn't started with "I" or "You", but she had also just screamed, which was the exact topic of his most recent argument.

When she finished screaming, she let go of her ears and looked at him with resolve.

She pointed and clicked. _"You."_

She act-pounced and chuff-tutted. _"Pounced."_

She pointed at the ground and made a new sound: _chr_.

 _"Here,"_ he guessed. _"You pounced here."_

 _Or in other words,_ he thought, _"You jumped into my burrow, and that's why I screamed."_

His frown deepened, then repeated his earlier message.

"I. Watch. You."

She looked to be on the verge of screaming again, but instead, she just picked up the speed of her acting.

She point-clicked at him. _"You."_ She pointed at her own eyes with a hiss. _"Watch."_ She pointed at herself. _"Me."_ And then, to his complete surprise, she actually _nodded_ , making a _keh_ noise as she did.

It was as if she had just said _"You watch me, yes."_

And she very well might have.

But she wasn't done.

Point-click. _"You."_ Pounce-chuff-tut. _"Pounce."_ Point-teeth-chatter. _"Me."_ Head-shake, plus a _puh_ sound. _"No."_

_"You pounce me, no."_

But she still wasn't done.

_"You strangle me, no."_

And this time, something new.

First, _"You."_

Then, she made a grabbing motion, yanking one paw with the other. This was accompanied by a _krp_ noise. _"Grab,"_ he guessed.

Finally came _"Me,"_ followed by a headshake and a _puh_.

_"You grab me, No."_

Then, she made the motion for "watch", independent of any sentence, and pointed at... her shoulder?

The fox tilted his head. He had been following up until that point.

The rabbit huffed, then brought two paw digits to the fur of her shoulder, spreading it apart to reveal the skin beneath. But it wasn't skin, it was a scab. The rabbit even leaned forward to give him a better view.

He looked at the scab, then glanced at her face, only to find her gaze intently on him.

Then, she pointed at his paw. No, she pointed at his _claws_. And her gaze was still intent.

He didn't notice himself wilting, nor did he notice himself wilting further as she pointed to three other body parts: her other shoulder, then a thigh, then another – all places he had grabbed her.

She then messaged _"You grab me"_ again, though "claw" seemed more appropriate than "grab" at this point.

Still, the fox _did_ have a reason.

He pointed at her. "You." His back paw made a thud in the dirt. "Kick." Then he pointed at his stomach, where her kick had landed. "Me."

Before he could even look to see if she understood, she had shot forward, her eyes gazing closely at his stomach, _her paw touching him_ , and her head tilting in exaggerated motions, as if inspecting the place he had pointed. Then, she drew back and gave a similar shrugging motion to the one he had used earlier – the action that had set this argument in motion, now being used to settle it.

If he had to guess, the message might have been _"I don't see any injury,"_ but she hadn't actually said anything, so the exact words didn't matter.

His mind grasped for another excuse, for a different reason that his actions had been justified, but it found none.

He wilted completely, whining. Only later that day, after his memories had replayed this argument, would he realize that he had given a submissive gesture to a prey mammal – a _very_ submissive one at that.

But at this moment, only one thing was on his mind.

He had just lost.

To a rabbit.

Whom he had hurt, after promising he wouldn't.

She pointed at him, then she pointed outside, again saying nothing.

He slunk out of the burrow, his tail between his legs.

* * *

**A.N. I'm not always going to do this, but I had some extra free time, so I wrote up the same chapter from a different POV.**

**It's a bonus scene, in other words.**

* * *

Her conscious mind came awake very slowly, then very quickly.

First, she wafted out a wide yawn, feeling something surround her entire body like a giant, warm blanket. She slowly opened her eyes, blinking them a few times to bat away the blurriness. She saw a green eye staring at her.

And just like that, she was awake.

 _Oh_ , she mentally groused, nothing but pure loathing flowing throughout her entire being. _It._

Before she could think anything aside from general negative feelings, the fox released her from its clawed clutch.

Following instinct instead of intent, she pressed herself against the far end of the burrow. When she was in control of her own actions again, she crossed her arms in front of her body, hoping to convey a fraction of what she was feeling by staring down her warden.

When the fox mirrored her movements – when the creature went from placid to aggressive – she couldn't stop the wave of fear that rushed through her body, and she hated herself for it.

But just as quickly as the fox had gone from peaceful to powerful in the eyes of her instincts, the fox went from powerful to... something else. Little _bur bur bur_ noises were coming from its open mouth, and its eyes were closed. And it was smiling.

She understood instantly.

_It's LAUGHING at me!_

And just like that, instincts were shoved handily aside by emotion, her fury taking a firm hold over her face and faculties. She crossed her arms again, glaring at the fox so hard that her gaze alone should have been enough to cause it great pain.

And it just laughed harder.

She had never hated something so much in her entire life. Her foot stomped on the ground, feverishly and furiously.

And when it finished laughing.

It.

Pinched.

Her.

Cheek.

And it had taken her a moment to get over her instinctive flinch, which made it even worse.

Her shouting "STOP IT!" did absolutely nothing to deter the fox.

It had that _stupid, ugly, dirty, condescending_ grin on its face when it brought its paw near her again.

This time, she did not flinch.

When it tried to pat her head, she swatted the paw away.

"YOU ARE THE MEANEST, NASTIEST, MOST HORRIBLE MAMMAL THAT EVER LIVED! YOU ARE RUDE! YOU ARE IMPOSING! YOU ARE ARROGANT! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND DECENCY OR PRIVACY OR PERSONAL SPACE! YOU STRANGLED ME AND YOU ACTED LIKE THAT WAS A **GOOD** THING! YOUR CLAWS STABBED ME AND I DON'T THINK YOU EVEN **NOTICED**! I **HATE** YOU!"

And when the fox failed to understand a single thing she had said, her anger was pushed to new bounds. Her supercharged emotions supercharged her brain, allowing her to instantly come up with a new tactic.

She pointed menacingly at the fox.

"YOU."

She pointed at the entrance to the burrow.

"LEAVE."

The fox

_Shook._

_Its._

_Head._

"STUBBORN FOX!" She shouted. Then, " **YOU! LEAVE!** ", only louder.

And when the fox responded to this with an indifferent shrug and an arrogant huff, the rabbit experienced something new entirely – an emotion she had never felt before.

Without any conscious effort on her part, her anger went from hot to cold, from caustic to calculating. Her brain had realized that blind rage wasn't getting anywhere, and so it stopped trying that approach altogether. It completely shut itself down to that avenue of reasoning, if pointless shouting could even be called 'reasoning'.

And into that new mental emptiness, a plan arose, along with a goal.

This fox didn't understand, and she _needed it_ to _UNDERSTAND._

She opened her eyes, not knowing or caring why they had been closed. She would start with the worst thing.

She pointed.

"You."

She acted.

"Strangled."

And when that didn't work she _over_ acted, which did. Then she started over, because the fox had interrupted, and because it would _not_ misunderstand her again.

Point. "You."

Act. "Strangled."

Point. "Me."

She waited, her gaze steady, not moving a muscle.

She knew that _it_ knew, this time, and she would also know its answer.

It nodded.

Her shout of "FINALLY!" was not a happy shout. It was only acknowledgement.

She continued.

Point. "You."

Act. "Attacked."

Point. "Me."

The fox nodded again, faster this time, then made as if to reply.

She waited and watched. She would hear its reason, and she would tear that reason to pieces.

It pointed at itself. _"I,"_ she mentally supplied.

It pointed at its eyes. _"See."_

It pointed at her. _"You."_

 _No, "I keep an eye on you"_ , her angry mind supplied. _It was watching me, making sure I would do what I said I would do._

Only, the fox didn't need to touch her to accomplish that. It could have watched the entrance of her burrow. Heck, if it wanted to be sure she wouldn't run away, it could have simply stayed right where it was from the start, half-inside and half-outside. Or it could have slept inside the entrance, where it is now.

 _Other things NOT necessary for monitoring your extortion victim_ , she thought viciously, _include touching, grabbing, clawing, enveloping, snuggling, humiliating, and SUFFOCATING her._

Needing a starting point to begin her argument, she shook her head to reject his answer. _Not acceptable_ , she thought. Then, she acted out the most important reason why not.

"You. Strangle. Me."

But the fox seemed to have an answer for that, too. _"You. Bite. Me."_

But she had only done that in the first place because-

"You. Smother. Me."

He responded with a charade that she interpreted as _"Your screaming hurt my ears."_

After a brief intermission to let out a tiny part of the incredible stress she was feeling, she soldiered on.

She had only screamed in the first place because-

"You. Attack. Here."

Every single fox alive should understand why pushing itself into a rabbit's home would alarm her.

When the fox told her, yet again, that he had done it to keep an eye on her, she almost, yet again, lost it. But she kept her cool. Barely. Instead, she focused purely on her argument.

First, she adapted his reasoning into her own languages, both body and lingual.

She pointed at him. "You."

She pointed at her eyes. "See."

She pointed at herself. "Me?"

She nodded. "Yes."

When she saw its surprised comprehension, she wasted no time.

"You. Attack. Me?" Head shake. "No."

"You. Strangle. Me? No."

Then, with a new gesture, "You. _Claw_. Me? No."

And finally, for emphasis, she pointed at her eyes, willing the fox to _look_. Immediately after, she pointed at one of the four fresh wounds on her body, made by the fox last night when he was 'keeping an eye' on her.

The initial failure of this gesture did not deter her.

She used her fingers to spread apart the fur, even leaning forward so the fox would see. So it would _understand_. That cold fury was still within her, and it did not yield to silly things like _instinct_.

When she saw that it saw, she pointed at its paw, which had four, sharp claws. Then she pointed at the four parts of her body that held fresh injuries.

The ears of the fox drooped.

She could see that it almost understood. But she could see that it still had hope.

It made a new message: "You. Kick. Me."

As soon as it had kicked the ground, she knew what it meant. She also, in that instant, knew how to respond.

Luckily, the fox lifted itself up so it could point exactly where she'd kicked. Before it could drop down again, she darted forward. Extending a paw, she touched the place where the fox had pointed and pretended to look closely for injuries. Finding nothing, she got up and shrugged.

She could tell the fox was nearly there.

So, she waited. And waited. Until...

It let out a whine, its ears fully flat on its head.

Finally, _finally_ the fox understood.

With a single finger, she pointed first to the fox, then to the outside of her burrow, not saying a word. Her message was perfectly clear. She did not condescend to bestow any more speech on a beast who wouldn't understand it in the first place.

The fox left.


	5. Fire

The first thing she did that morning was build a better burrow.

Yesterday she had only wanted a place to sleep, a hole in the ground where she could stay out of sight. She had forgotten or ignored the basic burrow-building principles taught by her old instructor.

Today, fueled by a fire of fury and the memories of last night, her brain helpfully pointed out everything wrong about her first attempt. It supplied half-remembered facts and techniques in such clear focus that it was almost like she'd memorized the lesson by rote (she hadn't).

_Step one: Make the entrance tunnel long, and no wider than yourself._

This would have kept the fox from entering.

_Step two: Go deep enough that the burrow can't easily be reached by predators that specialize in digging._

This would have prevented the fox from forcing himself the rest of the way inside.

_Step three: Make it big enough to keep a weapon on hand._

This would have given her a means to defend herself.

_Step four: Build multiple entrances, if possible._

This would have given her a way to escape if all else failed.

 _If I had done even one of these things_ , she thought angrily, _last night wouldn't have happened_.

She huffed as she remembered again. Her nails dug more viciously into the earth, her fingers loosening soil with speed and her one good foot shoving it behind her with force. Once she had amassed enough dirt that it began closing her in, she would backpedal, pushing the dirt until she reached the entrance and shoving it out.

Rinse and repeat.

As she dug, her body moved on autopilot, accessing instincts she didn't know she had. Her limbs churned the dirt, her progress was steady, and she moved much more accurately than she had yesterday. Being on all fours from the very start this time around also helped.

In only half the time it had taken to make that other pathetic excuse for shelter, she was admiring a _proper_ emergency burrow. Well, 'admiring' wasn't the right word; 'furiously inspecting for flaws' would say it better.

She scouted out the location earlier: a hill so small it was little more than a mound of earth. It was not far from her first attempt, but it was the best she could find with her current levels of patience and mobility.

At the moment, she was dragging her spear through the mouth of the mound's new mole hole, making sure she would not be defenseless in her own home again. This was the final exam. If the burrow passed, it will have passed every test she could perform by herself.

Once her spear successfully reached open air on the opposite end, she nodded once and marched off into the forest. There was more to do this morning, and it was best done while she was still angry.

* * *

The fox watched the rabbit pull her stick upright, then pull herself upright, then move stiffly but swiftly into the surrounding woods.

* * *

She didn't find exactly what she was looking for, but she found a close analogue: a fallen tree with long, easily removed strips of bark that just so happened to be covered with loose ivy.

She didn't bother returning to the clearing to begin her work; after gathering enough material she just plopped herself on the nearest bare space of ground.

First, she separated six long, straight strips from the bark, followed by a seventh that was half as long as the others.

Next, she arranged the strips in a star pattern, thirteen spokes expanding out from a central point. The longer six crossed each other halfway across their length; the thirteenth and final spoke was formed by the seventh strip of bark.

Then, with ivy in hand, she tied the center of the loose spokes together so that they were splayed out evenly.

Finally, she began the much longer process of weaving new strips of bark through the star pattern: starting from the center and expanding outward; starting with shorter strips and progressing to longer ones; starting with the base, then folding the spokes and moving upwards.

Each new strip of bark went over a spoke, then under the one that followed, then over the next, etc. An uneven number of spokes meant that each rotation around the star would produce an alternating weave; if the bark had gone under a spoke the last time around, it would go over that spoke next time.

Halfway through, she felt her stomach grumble, which she quickly satisfied on a nearby patch of grass.

She was determined to finish before the morning was even half over. She had a number of things to accomplish today, and not much time to accomplish them all.

* * *

The fox watched the rabbit set down her clearly unfinished item, proceed to a patch of grass, then begin munching. Her frown, which hadn't left her face the entire morning, deepened as she ate. He guessed it was at the taste.

* * *

The final step was to curve the remaining lengths of spoke into the weave at the top. This served separate purposes of securing the weave in place and safely blunting the spokes. She looked at her finished product.

She now had a basket.

Again, there was no pause to celebrate. She simply moved on.

With new tool in hand, she began gathering the driest, crispiest, deadest leaves she could find. She kept her eye out for sticks, occasionally picking one up, inspecting it, and either tossing it into the basket or tossing it back on the ground. She also kept an eye out for a certain species of fast-growing tree, one that had long, narrow chutes. Whenever she saw one, she would cut it down, cut it to four or five arm-length pieces, strip off the wood, and continue. (A small, sharp rock was more than enough to accomplish this. This type of tree could grow tall, but not wide; the stem was barely ever thicker than her thumb.)

When the load got too heavy, she moved it to her shoulder. One hand held the spear for support while the basket on her shoulder was supported by the other, her good foot beneath the load for stability.

Her gait brought her through groves and near grottos, her gaze constantly on the lookout for good materials to gather. By the time her basket was full she was nearly back to her second burrow, and the sun was nearly at noon.

* * *

The fox sniffed the ground, searching for something he would occasionally come across on hunts...

* * *

Getting back to the clearing again took hardly any extra time.

She emptied the basket in front of her old burrow, then brought it to the rocky shore.

First she set the stripped tree stems she had gathered directly under the sun so they could dry, on top of a rock away from the water. Next she filled her basket with as many large rocks as she could lift all at once, brought them to the burrow, then repeated. When she had enough rocks, she paced the clearing with purpose, gathering sticks and leaves that weren't alive, bringing them all back to one place.

The sun had moved much by the time the clearing was clear, but by then she had everything she needed.

* * *

_Found another one!_

The fox yanked the thing free from the ground, then decided he had found enough.

* * *

The rabbit huffed, finally ready to begin.

Before her was a sun-dried stick, a small hole carved out by a small rock in its center. Extending away from the hole was a notch also carved out by rock, a path to provide the punk (hot wood powder) a place to travel. Underneath the stick sat a pile of frayed fronds, a dry and perfect patch for the punk to land and ignite. To her left: a circle of stones surrounding dead leaves. To her right: sticks and firewood. And in her hand: a smooth, cylindrical spinning stick, kin to the one on the ground.

Putting her good foot on the far side of the stick to hold it steady, she set the end of her rubbing stick inside the hole, leaned forward, and began furiously making friction. It took some time before she saw smoke, and more time still before she had enough to stop rubbing.

She lifted the sticks, set them aside, then leaned further forward to blow onto the leftover embers.

She had a simple, step-by-step process in mind:

  1. Make fire.
  2. Burn and harden spear's tip.
  3. Sharpen hard stick on rock.
  4. Kill fox.



But before she had even finished step one of her plan – still more than three steps away from executing it – she heard a noise and looked up.

There, at the edge of the clearing, the fox stood. And in its mouth...

* * *

The fox had racked its brain much that morning after the argument. His initial dismay had quickly devolved to depression, followed by brooding.

He'd occasionally feel an ounce of anger, or a flash of frustration, as he recalled the rabbit's reasoning – especially when he realized how he must have looked at the end – but it was all mostly self-directed.

He wanted this rabbit to help him, and he had done nothing but hurt her. And threaten her.

He hadn't seen a problem with this yesterday, but that was before his brain had started seeing the rabbit as something cuddly and cute. You weren't supposed to hurt cute things, according to his instincts, but he had never imagined a rabbit could be cute. You were only supposed to feel that way about kits, and maybe vixens. But not prey, or else you'd starve.

When he had designated the rabbit as something not to be eaten, his mind had stopped seeing a simple meal and started seeing a complex creature. And one ironically cruel part of that complexity was cuteness.

His mind told him that he had, essentially, kicked a kit. And so, he had decided he would apologize.

He had followed the rabbit from its burrow with that intention, but without a plan. He had not known how he would apologize, nor when, until he saw the rabbit's reaction to that little patch of grass.

He knew little about rabbit foods other than grass, but even he knew that rabbits liked...

* * *

Carrots. Dangling from its mouth, dribbling little bits of dirt and debris onto the dry ground, were carrots. Wild carrots, by the looks of it, but still...

Carrots.

Steadily, the fox approached. Slowly, just as her instincts had yelled _TOO CLOSE_ and her hand headed for her spear, the fox came to a stop. Softly, it placed the carrots on the ground. Then, smoothly, it retreated.

By the time it sat down again, never having broken eye contact, it was just as far away from the carrots as she was, opposite them.

She looked between the fox and the food, her mind failing to follow.

Then, the rabbit suddenly looked at the fox with wide eyes.

 _It's apologizing_ , she thought. _It actually..._

She hiccupped. The fire in her heart which had fueled her furious morning furlough sputtered and died alongside the physical fire at her feet.

 _He,_ her mind supplied, for only a male could be that... well... _everything_ he had been, yesterday and this morning. (Stupid, stubborn, unfeeling, unrepentant, rude, etc.). _HE actually feels bad about..._

Slowly, she approached the carrots, her spear as forgotten as her fires. Silently, she scooped one up. Starting with the leaves, she began nibbling.

_He feels bad about..._

Suddenly, she remembered that a fox had helped her sleep two nights ago, on the worst night of her life. The same fox, she could now see, was sitting in front of her, no longer the monster from this morning. The two images clashed briefly in her mind, but the first easily beat the second.

Softly, she started to cry, the carrot falling to her feet.

* * *

The fox wavered at the sight and sound of tears and snuffles. What he wanted to do was hug the rabbit, his instincts telling him to _comfort the cute thing_. But he had barely closed the distance before his mind told his instincts that this would NOT be a good idea, after yesterday.

Then, the rabbit did something entirely alien to his expectations.

To his astonished surprise, _she_ closed the rest of the distance, eyes still closed, and wrapped _her_ paws in a hug around _him_. At least, she wrapped them as far as she could reach.

It took him a moment to realize why.

 _She's forgiving me_.

* * *

 _I'm sorry I wanted to kill you,_ she thought.

Strangely, her instincts didn't object to her actions, just as they hadn't that morning when she was facing down the fox. Even as the fox wrapped his own arms around her, she felt completely at ease. More than that, she felt happy, just like she had yesterday morning, as she felt the arms of a strong and caring mammal wrap around her.

She didn't know how long it would last, but she wanted it to last a while.

A while later, the moment ended.

She heard a grumbling, growling sound from directly in front of her, causing her to gasp and draw back.

The fox, when she looked up, looked surprised as well, then sheepish. He gently pat his belly with one of his paws.

 _The fox is hungry_ , she realized. The rabbit was strangely relieved by that particular thought. _It wasn't a guttural growl; it was a stomach rumble._

She felt the fox release her from his paws.

Her own paws had already let him go at the earlier sound, and she backed away now that her sense seemed to be working again.

The fox looked towards the river, then at her. But rather than seeming expectant, the fox appeared apprehensive. Then, with sad eyes and a dreary expression, he slowly turned away from her.

"Wait!"

The word was out of her lips without her conscious awareness. But even when her conscious thoughts caught up with her, they went something like this:

_All the time I was looking to hurt him, he was looking for a way to apologize. He even brought me food to do it. The least I can do in return is..._

When the fox stopped at the noise and turned to look at her, she rushed over to grab the shaft of her spear in her hands, then hoisted herself high on her heels.

"I'll get your fish," she said, even knowing the fox wouldn't understand. Then, on second thought, she simply said the word "fish" out loud, independent of anything else. She had already established that word yesterday, and she was hoping the fox would remember.

Judging by his surprised expression, followed by a wide smile, it seemed that he did.

It took very little time, in the end, to feed the fox.

There were a few moments of hunting, followed by a few longer moments of transferring the fish from her possession to his. Despite the earlier hug, her instincts would no longer let him get too close. Not to mention they objected to him touching the spear.

By the time the fox was eating, she was at a loss for what to do next. Her drive had left her, and she was left with nothing else upon which to expend effort for the evening.

She no longer had a reason to make a fire, but she felt like it would be such a waste to let all that preparation go to waste. It would be especially wasteful if it rained soon, even if she had no idea when the next storm would be coming.

 _Still_ , she thought to herself, _even if I don't HAVE a reason, I could always FIND a reason._

After only a moment of searching, she found _two_.

* * *

The fox was happily chomping on trout when he heard a splashing sound.

For a moment, he considered the rabbit's sudden interest in swimming, but then decided he was more interested in his food. That decision lasted as long as the fish did, and soon he was observing the rabbit again – not playing in the water like he'd thought, but using it to scrub down her fur, which now looked considerably less dirty.

When she shifted from the shallows to the shore, she was thoroughly soaked and dripping wet.

But his mind was elsewhere. In particular, he was thinking about the fish in the water, to which his eyes had wandered and which they had watched while the rabbit washed. S _till hungry_ , he thought.

Her gaze followed his, then returned to him. She raised an eyebrow.

The fox looked to her, then back to the fish. He raised a paw, pointed at them, and said "eat fish." He wondered if that would be enough, or if he would have to act it out.

She frowned, though he couldn't tell if that was because she didn't understand, or if it was because she did. Then, she did something he couldn't understand at all: she began raising the digits of her paw, one at a time.

With one digit raised, she made a sound he hasn't heard yet, then said the word "fish." When she had two digits raised, she made a new sound, then said the word "fish" again. She repeated this until she had all eight digits of both paws raised in front of her.

He tilted his head. He knew she was trying to tell him something new, but he couldn't tell _what_ , exactly.

She huffed, picked up a rock, pointed at it, then raised a single digit in the air and made that first sound again. She then secured a second rock and slipped a second digit in the air, her lips spitting out a second sound.

He got it when she was on the fourth: she was _counting_. And she was using her paw digits for the numbers.

She dropped the rocks (not that she could have gone further than four using that method) as soon as she saw his insight, which was probably obvious on his face. She then moved back to fish, and he understood that she was asking how many he wanted.

"Two," he said aloud, raising two of his own digits in front of him, just like she had.

She nodded, then walked back to the water, still wet. When she returned, she had two fish on the end of the rod, still alive and wriggling. With a brief look of disgust, she removed one and tossed it to his feet.

By the time he had flayed the flopping fish and flopped it into his fangs, the rabbit was walking away from the water, toward the clearing.

He followed after, mirthfully munching on meat.

She stopped by the circle of stones she had arranged earlier, as well as the thing she made to help her carry other things around. She propped her hunting stick, still stabbing through scales, on the thing of bark, then picked up a much smaller stick – the one she had been fiddling with when he had found her earlier. She was now fiddling with it again, doing that almost untraceably fast thing with her paws that made a constant _sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh_ sound.

He watched for a while, his eyes slowly drifting to the fish still on her other stick. He knew she had a problem with him getting too close, the earlier hug aside. He was tempted to go over and take it, but that seducing suggestion wasn't strong enough to encourage him to action, only to annoy him in his abstinence.

He began wondering if she was doing it on purpose, just to get back at him for this morning, when his thoughts were interrupted. He sniffed, a scent on the air that he'd only ever smelled once.

And that was when he saw it: smoke.

* * *

She blew on the little litter of leaves, lifting the loam as she did. She quickly moved the small, smoking stack of shredded stems and stalks into the much larger pile surrounded by stones, still adding air with accurate exhales. When the fire caught, she began throwing tiny sticks on top, followed by medium sticks, followed by larger sticks, until she had a full, proper fire going.

She allowed the warm air to waft over her in waves that washed away her wetness, a smile on her face as she felt her fur fluff out. It took some time to dry off completely – enough time for the sun to have set and the stars to settle in the night sky.

It only occurred to her to look for the fox when her own needs had been managed, at which point she realized that she hadn't seen him in a while.

She picked up her spear, the dead fish drooping on the end, and looked out into the dark forest.

Thankfully, he was close enough that his fur reflected some of the light, just barely illuminated by the orange incandescence.

She smiled and made a _come here_ gesture.

But he shook his head. She couldn't quite see from this distance, but he may have glanced at the fire as he did.

She looked to fire, then to fox. _He's afraid,_ she realized. _Afraid of the blaze._

Then, she remembered that the only fire a wild mammal would be familiar with would be a forest fire.

 _Well,_ she sighed, if _he won't come to me, I can go to him. But first..._

She turned around, sat down, and stuck the fish over the fire. She wasn't sure if this would work, especially considering she had never cooked meat before, but she hoped it would help the flavor. Even without adding seasoning, a carrot cooked in boiling water tasted better than a raw one, in her opinion. Thankfully, the fish was already wet, and therefore it should not need to be cooked in water to keep it from burning. She would occasionally inspect the ichthyoid, touching the trout to test the temperature, rotating her spear if one side felt cooler than the other.

When she finally felt the fish was finished, she ferreted the fox out again, and approached.

She knew that she couldn't just toss the fish this time; it might crumble in her paws like a baked potato without skin. But that left the question of _how_ she would hand it to him.

 _I could just hand him the spear,_ she thought. _He won't hurt his free-food-fetcher._

 _You're completely insane,_ her instincts insisted as she crossed the threshold of comfort and eased into tense territory. _You need a way to defend yourself._

 _Oh, shut up,_ she scowled. _I don't have to listen to you_.

But even with this thought in mind, her body still shook slightly as she stalked right up to the fox and stuck out her spear – her only means of defense – sideways to the fox.

The fox seemed surprised, looking between her and her spear between the space of a few blinks. Slowly, as if not to alarm her, he reached out with his own paw, and took it.

She flinched slightly as the shaft left her fingers but kept herself from retreating.

She watched as he maneuvered the tip of the spear to his face, bringing the fish to his nose. His eyes widened, then his mouth widened, and he took a quick bite, followed by many more bites, until the fish was gone. He was licking his lips in no time at all, his eyes closed and smiling.

She had to repress the shudder at the sight of his teeth, but that had been getting easier over the course of the day. _Take that, instincts!_ She smiled to herself. _I told you I could do it. And look, he liked it._

When he opened his eyes again, she saw both wonder and wariness within him. He was curious, but cautious.

She looked at him, a new fire burning in her eyes. Not one of anger, or passion, but of firm, fixed resolve. She extended a hand toward the fox in open invitation.

She had intended for him to place his hand in hers, so when he instead put the spear there, she glanced at it briefly, then placed its blunt end on the ground and extended her other hand.

The fox looked at her, confused.

She pointed at his, said "hand", then flipped over her own, again open and inviting.

The fox, still confused, and now hesitant, placed his paw in her hand. He understood her intention when she started pulling him toward the orange light, and immediately pulled his paw back.

She cried out as claws scraped her skin, releasing his hand to cradle her own.

He had frozen at her pained plight, now looking at her and her hand with helpless distress.

She should have seen that coming.

But she was still resolved.

Though her hand now trembled and bled, she held it out once more.

The fox shook his head.

She huffed, then pointed at herself, and said "I." She made a new charade, bringing one finger into brief contact with the backside of her other hand as she said "touch" aloud. Then she pointed at him, saying "you."

_If I can overcome my instincts..._

Next, she pointed at him again. "You." She pointed at her eyes. "See." She pointed at the glow. "Fire."

_...you can too._

The fox agonized over her insistence, spending long moments whining and shaking his head.

But her eyes stayed steady, and she nodded her head firmly each time he did.

Eventually...

Reluctantly...

The fox relented, placing his paw once more in her hand, this time with claws sheathed.

As she brought him near, she on two feet and he on three, she could feel him beginning to tremble. She slowed as the tremble worsened, then stopped altogether when they were a few feet from the fire.

Still holding his paw, she sat down on the ground and turned to face him. She almost let go when he sat down too, but held on when she saw his eyes still sending stares to the fire. She would not let go until she knew he would not run away.

What could she do to distract him?

With sudden excitement, she smiled. She had the perfect idea.

* * *

The fox felt tremors travel through his torso, to his arms and legs, and out his paws. The fire was _right there_ , and he wanted _away_ from it.

A _clck_ sound briefly drew his attention, but his eyes were soon back on the fire. A much louder _CLCK!_ brought them back to the rabbit again, where they stayed when they saw her wide eyes: expressive and determined.

She brought a paw to her chest and said _"Ch-ty."_

His eyebrows furrowed.

She did it again, this time clearly separating the _Chuh_ and _Tee_ sounds.

He tilted his head, still failing to understand.

She brought her paw away from her chest, pointed at herself while making the "I" noise, then placed her paw back on her SELF and said clearly _"Ch-ty."_

 _It's her name,_ he realized. _She just told me her name._

He tried the name on his own tongue, jutting out a jittery "Juh-dy."

She shook her head, saying _"Ch-ty."_

He tried again. "Jh-dy."

_"Ch-ty."_

He frowned, his mouth going to unusual positions as he said "Ch-ty."

She beamed, nodding her head rapidly.

 _That wasn't simple to say,_ he thought. _I wish it was easier._ Then, with a sly grin suddenly appearing on his lips, he said "Judy."

Her smile vanished, and she said _"Ch-ty"_ again.

He nodded, saying "Ch-ty" to satisfy her, but just as she began smiling again, he said "Judy."

She was not amused. She said _"Ch-ty"_ again, but he just shrugged. She crossed her arms, glaring at him.

_Fine, if you think it's so easy let's see how YOU handle a FOX name._

Bringing his own paw to his chest, he clearly articulated "Nick."

Her eyes widened, and her arms uncrossed. Hesitantly, she said _"T-ck."_

He shook his head. "NNNNNick. With an ennnn. NNNNNick."

She frowned, then tried again. _"NNN-ck."_

Still not good enough. "Niiiiiiick, with an 'ih'. Niiiiick."

Frowning further in deep concentration, she forced her voice to come out, saying _"Niiiiick."_

He smiled. "Nick."

_"Nick."_

He smiled further and nodded.

Then, _"T-ck."_

He frowned. "Nick."

_"T-ck."_

And that was when he saw her grin, followed by her shrug.

She pointed at him, said _"T-ck"_ , then pointed at herself and said _"Ch-ty"_.

He pointed at her, said "Judy", then pointed at himself and said "Nick". Then, with sudden mischief, he pointed at her and carefully said "Ch-ty", then pointed at himself and said "T-ck".

_Let's see her do THAT. I can do our names in Fox AND Rabbit speak._

She seemed to accept the challenge. _"Nick"_ , pointing at him, then _"Joody"_ , pointing at herself.

 _Close enough,_ he sighed. They now knew each other's names, helpfully translated into each other's tongues.

A crackling sound drew his attention and he looked to the fire, suddenly apprehensive again, no longer distracted.

Then a loud _CRUNCH_ brought his attention back to the ra- to Judy. He watched her bring a carrot to her mouth and begin to nibble.

"Carrots?" he asked aloud. He looked at her other paw, and saw that it held another.

She took another bite, looking happy.

"Where did you get..." he trailed off as he looked to the ground beside her, and recognized where they were sitting.

Sure enough, there sat a stack of carrots, the same he had brought earlier, laying where he had left them. And sitting right next to the pile, in exactly the place she had hugged him earlier, sat Judy, still smiling.

* * *

When Judy finished the carrot in her hand, she reached out and grasped Nick's paw, which she had dropped long ago. She looked him in the eyes for just a moment, then looked to the fire.

She felt his paw tense and his claws come out.

She frowned at the reaction, wincing slightly as the points touched her new wounds and wondering how she could help. Instinct wasn't easy to overcome. Even now, she had to suppress that nagging voice telling her to get away. But the longer she spent near Nick, the easier it became to ignore.

_Well, if time and patience are the answer..._

She stood up, closed the distance between them, and sat down again, leaning into his fur.

_Since you helped me..._

Nick's attention was drawn away from the fire by her actions yet again. He looked at her, then looked at his claws, failing to understand how she could come _closer_ to him when he had them out.

_I can help you._

She said "I touch you," acting it out by actually touching him. Then, she said and mimed "You see fire."

 _If I can sit this close to you,_ she thought, _you can sit this close to the fire._

Nick seemed to understand better than he had earlier, even relaxing enough to sheath his claws again.

She smiled, pressed herself further into his fur, then had an idea. It was an ambitious idea, brought about by the haze of warmth fogging up her brain.

She lazily pointed at herself. "I." Then she pointed at him, though she misjudged the distance and touched his side. "You." Then she pointed back and forth between herself and him. "We."

Finally, she said the full sentence with a yawn. "WE see fire."

She watched the flames flicker in the night, not even noticing herself drifting off to sleep under his arm.


	6. Milestones

Judy awoke, for the third consecutive day, being held possessively by her natural predator. But unlike the previous two days...

 _Nick_ , she thought as she opened her eyes.

His arms were not grasping her tightly, nor were his legs. In fact, his hold didn't bother her at all: he literally encircled her, the tip of his tail almost meeting the tip of his nose, with only a single arm draped over her shoulder.

Slowly, the memories of the previous day returned to her, and then of the previous night, and then she noticed that she was no longer outside. Nick must have moved them to her first burrow again.

 _So much for putting that second one to use_ , she thought, only slightly annoyed at the wasted effort.

She pressed further into the fur of the fox, her habits of social sleeping with siblings overcoming her instincts in this instance. Thankfully, from this angle, she could not see his claws or teeth, making it that much easier to ignore the nagging sense that she should be scrambling away screaming.

 _I don't need to listen to you_ , she insisted at her instincts, resolutely repeating last night's realization. _I'm a strong, independent rabbit!_

(This ironic statement did not seem to stay in her mind for long, however, as the fox whom she had just finished cuddling began to shift in response to her half hug.)

She started slightly at the shifting of the slumbering fox before once again consciously quashing the compulsion to climb to her feet and flee.

A green eye opened, staring blankly and blinking a few times before finally focusing on the form of the bunny before it.

Suppressing another shudder, she looked right back at him and smiled.

His one visible eye widened briefly, then his head lifted off the ground and turned to her. Nick returned a hesitant smile, his lips drawing back-

_TEETH!_

-to reveal teeth that only slightly caused her to flinch. She was getting much better about that, honest!

But Nick seemed to notice anyway, his smile shifting into a something slightly sadder.

Judy, with a firm thought directed at her instincts to _Quit it!_ , placed a palm on his pelt and pet placidly, hoping to convey that it was okay, and that he shouldn't worry about it.

Nick did not seem to understand entirely, but he did cheer up some. Then, he unwrapped himself from around her, stood as far away from her as the small space could sustain, and started stretching.

She watched the fox flush out the flaws from his fibrous frame, wincing weakly as his claws extended and retracted. The mighty, close-eyed yawn that followed was difficult to endure, but endure it she did.

She stretched a tad as well, noting that her ivy-encircled ankle no longer felt nearly as injured as before.

 _Almost healed,_ Judy judged, tapping the trappings.

This caught the attention of Nick, who moved his face forward toward her foot, sniffing subtly.

She smiled, then stood up on twos, not needing the spear/staff for support.

Nick watched her in some surprise, glancing from her foot to her face. Then, he tried standing up as well, but his head had hit the ceiling, and he began rubbing it.

Judy might have been more interested in the fact that a _wild fox_ had only taken _three days_ to attempt what most wild rabbits took weeks to try if she hadn't been snickering too hard to notice it.

The fox glared at her, sending a shiver down her spine, which he saw, causing him to drop the glare.

"Here," she said when she was in control of herself again. "Come outside." She made a sort of _follow me_ motion with her arm as she exited the burrow.

The fox followed her out after only a slight hesitation.

Judy walked to one of the willows surrounding the clearing – an excellent tool for beginners – and waited for Nick to catch up. When he did, she demonstrated going from four legs to two, trailing her hands up the tree trunk until she was fully upright. Then she moved away and pointed at Nick. "You." She pointed at the trunk. "Try."

Nick studied her suspiciously, then shifted his eyes to the shaft of the willow. He approached it slowly, then started to climb upwards. He fell over twice, but Judy encouraged him to keep trying. Finally, after several false starts, he stood on shaky legs, and Judy was clapping.

"Good job," she said. Only then did she notice the fast progression of the fox from wild to walking.

And she suddenly knew what she would be doing that day.

She quickly said, "You stay there," pointing at the fox, then at the tree, before dashing over to the firepit and finding her spear. She rushed back to the fox, whose eyes widened in apparent alarm.

 _Oh right,_ she thought. _Weapon._

She slowed down, spun the spear so the sharp end was pointing away from him, and said "Here."

The fox looked from her to the spear, then slowly reached out to take it. When he had the spear in his grasp, he lost his balance and fell forward onto all fours.

Judy nodded in satisfaction, then approached the tree and performed her lesson plan: first, her hands walked up the wood once again; next, she released her hold on the bark, and she progressed on two paws to the closest tree; finally, she leaned on her destination, looking at Nick to see if he understood.

Nick's eyebrows were furrowed, but he nodded once when he noticed her questioning gaze.

Although instead of attempting the amble himself, he pointed at her, said the sound for "You," then made a new sound accompanied by a _come over here_ gesture.

She approached curiously, not sure what to expect.

Nick pointed at her. "You." Then he pointed at the ground, making a second noise she hadn't heard before. He rolled his eyes when she tilted her head, then made an exaggerated show of being on all four paws.

She lowered herself to the ground, not sure what he was getting at.

Nick eyed her with a critical expression, then shook his head.

She had to suppress another impulse as he padded _right up to her_ and _touched her_. He prodded her thigh with his paw, then poked her back. When she still didn't understand, he put pressure on her lower back until her butt was almost touching the ground. Then he adjusted the angle of her arms and the stance of her thighs.

Finally, he took a step back and nodded.

It didn't take long to realize what this was about. She felt... _natural_ , for lack of a better word. Even her instincts were no longer shouting at her, having finally found something to be happy about for a change. If she had to guess, her crouching position probably paralleled that of a wild rabbit.

She looked at Nick, who was smiling at her magnanimously. Then he demonstrated what he wanted her to do next: he briefly crouched himself, then leapt forward in a mighty lunge.

She mirrored the motion, a rush of adrenaline shooting through her veins as she moved faster than she ever had under her own power – maybe faster than she had ever moved, period. She landed clumsily, but she was soon back on her feet – on _all four_ feet – and trying again. She laughed with pure joy as she caught herself correctly, then laughed more as she accelerated again. Soon she was dashing around the clearing, the pain in her foot completely forgotten.

 _This is amazing!_ she wanted to shout to the air, only she was panting too powerfully to pause. Then, suddenly, something screamed _FOX!_ in her head, and she pushed off in a completely random direction that her instincts insisted she should go because it was _away from it_. And that was how she ran face-first into a fern.

She sat there for a moment, dazed, until a snickering snapped her out of it. Her senses were still scrambled, but she recognized that sound as foxy laughter, and she automatically glared in the direction it was coming from.

The laughter continued, but it slowly died down. Curiously, it stayed the same volume, somehow managing to grow louder as it grew softer. She only realized what it meant when her eyes finally managed to focus on something: Nick had been getting closer. He was standing not far away, a paw extended in her direction.

Taking only a moment longer than usual to stomp down the strangely stronger-than-it-should-be instinctual instruction to shove herself away, she placed her hand in his and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.

Nick was still smiling at her, almost looking proud.

"Alright," she said, "I've had my fun. Now it's your turn."

She pointed back to the two trees, causing Nick's expression to wilt.

"Come on, hop to it," she said, clapping her hands. Nick wouldn't understand the words, but he'd understand the attitude. "If I can run on four feet, you can walk on two."

The thought did not occur to her until much later that her own success was not a reflection of talent, but of something else entirely. Only after repeated exposure to the same idea would she realize the true reason: it was far easier to fall back on your instincts than it was to overcome them.

* * *

Nick paced the space betwixt the trees. He did not waste effort on haste, but on the deliberate and conscious effort of putting one foot in front of the other.

He did not even peripherally pay attention to Judy, who (last time he checked) was doing something with fire and another tree she had decided to be no longer deserving of the right to remain upright.

No, his focus was firmly fixed on his own actions, and on the tree in front of him. He was almost there... almost there... almost...

"There!" he shouted, _finally_ leaning on the other tree. It had taken him _all morning_ to do that. He almost couldn't believe that Judy did this _all the time_.

He glanced at the rabbit, who seemed to be leaning forward and blowing on something. She wasn't blowing on the fire, like she had to get it started, but on the end of her freshly cut stick, which seemed to be smoking.

He wondered if he should go over and see, but she _was_ sitting right next to the fire...

 _And besides_ , he thought. _I should get better at this first. That way I can show her I_ actually _know how to walk the way she does, when she inevitably asks me to demonstrate._

And so he devoted more of his day to this arduous effort, only occasionally observing Judy to track her progress. His own was very slow going, but he did feel like he had improved by the end. Now he could make it across the gap without fail every other attempt. If he used Judy's stick for support, he could easily do it every time, but that had gotten old some time ago, before he adopted the challenge to go the distance unaided.

He only stopped practicing when he noticed Judy headed to the river, a new stick held in her paw.

Nick, curious, followed after, using her old stick to walk on two paws.

She noticed him halfway through, stopping to stare with wide eyes and an open mouth as he drew closer.

He smiled smugly in return, only dropping to all fours when his feet were about to meet the rocky sheet of the creek's shore. He handed the stick to her, saying "Fish," as he did. He knew, from yesterday, that the fire would eventually die down, and he wanted to enjoy some flame-licked-fish before it did. He pointed to the fire, for emphasis.

Not long later, he was stuffing himself on a spit-roast with satisfaction.

While he ate, he watched Judy grind one rock against another – a small stone vs. the big flat rock next to the water – not knowing in the slightest why she was doing it. She would occasionally dip the smaller rock into the creek, or splash some water onto the larger one, but then it would be right back to grinding.

When the fish were gone, he continued to watch for a time, then came to a decision. She had just helped him with the fish, so he could help her with...

She jumped when he placed his paw around hers, turning quickly to face him.

"I got this," he said, pointing to himself. Even though he didn't quite know what 'this' was.

She brought a paw to her chest, as if to calm down her sudden panting.

 _Oh right,_ he thought. _I shouldn't surprise her like that_.

Eventually, she managed to notice that he was now scraping the smaller rock against the larger one. She immediately said something and grasped his arms, halting his movements.

He looked at her, confused.

She shook her head, taking his paws in hers, and adjusting them until he was holding the smaller rock almost parallel to the larger rock. Then she nodded, moving his paws back and forth while keeping them at that angle.

_Don't scrape the sharp-ish edge. Got it._

He began adding more pressure to his scraping, Judy watching him all the while. Occasionally she would splash some water over his paws – which had surprised him the first time – making the scraping somewhat easier. She eventually had him flip over the rock to begin scraping the other side, which was the moment he noticed that the side he'd been working was now significantly flatter and smoother than it had been when he'd started. It wasn't until he was finished with the other side as well that he realized the point of the whole thing.

 _We just gave that rock a long, sharp edge_.

And it was then that he also noticed a hole in the stick she was holding, seemingly burned straight through. The hole was about the same size as the rock, and after a bit of effort, the rabbit was soon holding a stick with sharp rock through one end.

* * *

 _Axe acquired_ , Judy thought finally. _It only took, what, the whole day?_ She looked up at the sun. _Most of the day_ , she mentally corrected.

A yip from Nick drew her gaze back down to earth, and she saw him looking at her questioningly. He repeated the yip, pointing at the axe, and tilting his head.

_If I had to guess, he just asked me what it was, or what it's for._

"It's an axe," she said. She stood from her perch on the flat rock and walked to the nearest small tree. "Watch."

She began banging against the bark, chipping away at the wood one chop at a time. The axe head was shaped like a triangle, meaning it would wedge itself further into the hole with each strike. Soon, taking much less time than her previous two trees, the towering lumber tumbled, and she moved on to another.

* * *

 _She made something that helps her chop down trees_ , Nick thought. _And now she's making the clearing wider_.

The rabbit had, in the time between finishing her new tool and sunset, managed to chop down no fewer than five trees, and she was well on her way to her sixth. What's more, these trees were all longer and slightly thicker than the first two, though not by much.

When her most recent foe had fallen, Judy seemed satisfied with herself. She dragged the trees away to her new burrow, shoving them well inside and leaving them there. She then turned on her heel and walked back to her first burrow.

She didn't come out again, making Nick wonder if she had turned in for the night.

* * *

Judy yawned, lying down on the dirt floor and munching on her last carrot. She had made good progress today, and she already had an idea for her next project.

A noise coming from immediately outside made her jump. Then she realized that she had _completely_ forgotten about Nick sometime around the second tree.

A fox's head poked through the hole, focusing quickly on her. "Judy?" he asked, using his version of her name instead of hers.

"Nick?" she asked back, using her version of his name instead of his.

He paused, looking like he wanted to ask her something, but probably not knowing how. Then, in his own language, he said "you", followed by a new word she hadn't heard before, followed by an act she easily interpreted as sleeping.

_"Are you going to sleep?"_

She nodded. "Yes."

He paused, thinking again. "I" he said, followed by "you", followed by another word she hadn't heard before, while he pointed back and forth between them.

 _"We,"_ she thought. _Just like I taught him last night, only now he's teaching me HIS way of saying it._

She nodded, conveying she had understood.

Then he acted out a full sentence. She didn't understand the last word, but it was easy enough to guess through context.

_"We sleep together?"_

The question gave her some pause. _Did_ she want to sleep with the fox again? Her instincts both did and did not like the idea. On the one hand, she probably wouldn't be able to fall asleep all that well without another mammal to cuddle. In fact, she couldn't remember a singe night in her entire life where she went to sleep alone; even on the very worst night, Nick had been there to fill the void. But on the other hand, her instincts insisted, once again, that this was a _fox_.

After taking that into account (and immediately discarding it, because _screw you, instincts!_ ), the choice was clear.

She nodded, backing up to allow Nick space to enter.

He smiled, pulling himself the rest of the way inside and pressing up against her.

She thought, as she slowly drifted to sleep, that this might be some sort of milestone: the first night she consciously chose not only to let a fox into her home, but to sleep soundly next to her. A milestone _to what end_ , she didn't know, but a milestone nonetheless.


	7. Obstacles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This A/N will only make sense to people coming from fanfiction:
> 
> Sorry to all readers for the long and unexplained hiatus. I had visions of grandeur with regards to submitting a finished manuscript of this story to a publishing industry, and so refrained from uploading. I was thinking for the longest time that this was my only "book-worthy" fic idea because at the end of the day, Nick and Judy are the only reason this is Zootopia fanfiction; change the names and personalities, you have a different universe entirely. But that mindset resulted in me barely working on the story at all. I might submit the manuscript afterwards, but for now I think I'll finish out the story here. Hopefully. So I'm uploading this on 11/3/2020, to indicate that I've ELECTED to keep uploading.

Green eyes blinked open, briefly blinded by early morning light, blearily browsing the burrow as they adjusted.

No threats.

No surprises.

No worries.

Orange paws opened, allowing an alley of air between brown pads and fluffy fur. White teeth opened wide with mighty yawn. The complete lack of flinching told Nick that Judy was still asleep. The fox moved carefully, taking time to sit up without waking the rabbit who, by the end of his movements, was sitting in his lap, her back against his chest.

"What am I going to do with you?" he asked himself in a whisper.

He slowly stroked her ears with his digits, eliciting a strange little squeak from her lips.

"You have no instincts, you can't see danger coming, and you just learned how to run _yesterday._ "

He moved his left paw to grasp hers.

"You _look_ like a rabbit, but you don't know how to _be_ a rabbit. All you know are these clever little tricks."

He pressed his thumb into her palm. Her nails slowly extended in response.

"I feel like the moment I let you out of my sight, another fox will come along and..."

He pressed her palm a little harder, watching the nails come all the way out until they _almost_ looked like stubby little claws. Then he released the pressure on her palm, and watched the nails retract.

"You make too much noise. You don't pay attention. You'd rather _defend_ yourself from danger than _run away_ from it."

He dropped the paw he was holding, picked up the other.

"On the other paw, you make things. You could feed _five_ foxes with all the fish you catch. And you actually _can_ defend yourself if you have your stick."

He pressed her palm again.

"Maybe."

Un-press.

Nick gave a massive sigh, his initial thought returning to his mind and lips. "What am I going to do with you? I don't want anyone to eat you-"

* * *

"I... you..."

Long before she rose to full consciousness, Judy heard those two words. They weren't spoken in her own language, but she heard them nonetheless. Among an otherwise incomprehensible series of yips and growls, "I" and "you" stood out.

When Judy felt fingers at her ears, it was so much like her mother's touch that she let out a childish, wordless chitter. When she felt her hands being held, it was so much like when her father would trim her nails that she entirely forgot where she was.

The sensations were not at all alarming. They were even a little relaxing. She didn't bother opening her eyes.

At least, not until she heard the words "I" and "eat" and "you" in the same sentence.

Her eyes shot open, instantly awake.

Her body, however, remained limp and relaxed, as if she were in a state of sleep paralysis. Her mind was sharp, focusing on the fox, but her body was so still that she would still seem asleep to the outside world.

She heard the word 'you' four more times amidst another stream of gibberish, then 'fish you catch' all at once, then more gibberish. Then she heard 'I' and 'you' again. Finally, she heard the thing she dreaded she would hear:

'I' followed soon after by 'eat you'.

Without any hesitation at all, she leaped into action, out of the grasp of the fox and through the burrow's opening. A stunned fox was left behind in the burrow.

Her instincts told her to use the new, fast way of running so she could escape danger as quickly as possible. She lowered herself to all fours and shot into the forest like a slingshot pellet. After her instincts felt like she'd put a good bit of distance between herself and the fox, they demanded she eat some food to regain her strength, and pointed to a few patches of grass. But in the middle of eating the horrible-tasting food...

* * *

Nick followed the smell of the dumb bunny who had scampered away at the break of day, a task made slightly harder by her scent-covered stick in his mouth. If she was going to run around in a forest, she should _at least_ have her sharp stick. When he found her, Judy was munching on a patch of grass. Her eyes were closed in a grimace. Her ears were _not_ twitching at nearby sounds. How would she notice any threats eating like _that_?

"Joo-ee," Nick said around the stick.

Judy jumped, turned, looked, and took off. If it weren't for the _way_ she took off (how did she expect to _escape_ any threats, running like _that_?), Nick would've sworn he'd just seen some random rabbit run away, not the one from the past five days.

Nick heaved a sigh as she disappeared into the brush. When rabbits run away, they typically cover a good deal of distance, then stop when they feel safe enough to catch their breath. Or they go back to their burrow, which Judy wasn't doing. They didn't know that their scents stood out from the surrounding forest like cicada chirps on a quiet night.

So Nick put his nose to the ground and followed. When he came across her again, she was drinking from a river. With her eyes closed. Again. Seriously, did this rabbit have _no_ survival instincts at all?

" _Joo-ee_!" he called again, louder than before.

This time, when she turned to run, he decided that enough was enough. He bolted after her, his legs pumping as if he were on an actual hunt. Even though she was a rabbit, and even though rabbits would always be faster than foxes, Judy's _technique_ was still terrible. She had no experience.

It was an easy chase.

Just before pouncing, Nick spat the stick from his mouth and extended his claws, digging into the ground to get as much traction as possible. The moment he was _off_ the ground, he retracted his claws again. It would put him at a disadvantage in the final grapple, but he could deal with that. All four of his arms enveloped his prey, scooping her up in an inescapable hold. His lips clamed on her neck, the flesh of his gums completely blocking any teeth from touching her fur. His prey went still as if defeated, and Nick grinned triumphantly.

* * *

Judy froze when she felt the jaws of the fox clamp her throat.

She knew it.

She was going to die.

And be eaten.

And that would be it.

She scrunched her eyes shut, praying the predator would make it painless.

When no pain came, she was both hopeful and terrified that she had gotten her wish.

* * *

Nick removed his mouth from her neck, unwrapped his arms from her body, and sat on her stomach. A memory of a way to convey his feelings wordlessly flashed through his mind: he crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the source of this morning's massive and mounting migraine.

"Judy," he said out loud.

No response.

The rabbit just laid there, her eyes closed and her body trembling.

" _Judy_ ," he repeated loudly...

To the same effect.

He was almost – _almost_ – tempted to reach down and pry open her eyelids, but he stopped his paw before it could get anywhere near her face. He was angry, but not _that_ angry. So when he asked his anger if it had any _better_ ideas, he was surprised and pleased when it suggested...

A massive grin spread across his lips. Slowly, he extended his claws. Menacingly, he brought them down to the body of the completely defenseless rabbit.

And he tickled her. Softly at first but increasing in intensity when the rabbit snickered softly. Then giggled gently. Then laughed loudly. He didn't let up until she was panting for breath and weakly attempting to push his arms away. It took a while for her to calm down after that, but when she did, she _finally_ looked up at him in something other than terror. She wore a face that was lost and terribly confused, but _at least_ it wasn't very fearful.

 _"T-ck?"_ she asked, using her own language to say his name.

He went back to crossing his arms. "Judy."

After a brief staring contest (which Nick won, of course), Judy managed to sign out with trembling paws and voice, _"You eat me."_

 _Huh?_ Nick thought. _Didn't we already cover this?_

Nick looked at the trembling rabbit, whose trembling was only getting worse.

(Her fear inched upwards for every second he took to answer. When someone takes time to think about the question of them killing you, it doesn't inspire confidence.)

Nick, ignorant of the effect of his own hesitation, thought quietly to himself for a moment. He thought they had already covered this days ago, but apparently not. He could _sort of_ see how she might think he would eat her if she didn't feed him, but...

He shook his head, saying "No, I don't eat you."

Still trembling, she said a new sentence, using a new word.

 _"You,"_ followed by a paw opening and closing like the hinge of a jaw – or a gaping maw. She squeaked her new word, followed by _"you eat me."_

Nick frowned, frustrated. He didn't understand the new word, so he shook his head and said a five-word sentence of his own. "I do not eat you."

Judy picked up on the fact that he didn't understand her new word, Nick could tell.

After a moment of silence, she said _"I"_. She then used the new squeaky word, her paw opening and closing as she said it, followed by the word he knew to mean 'you', although rather than point at him she opened and closed her paw again, this time in sync with her mouth saying _"you"_.

She repeated this for multiple words:

 _"I"_ , new squeaky word and paw movements, _"eat"_ with new paw movements.  
_"I"_ , new word, new movements, _"fish"_.  
_"I"_ , new word, _"I"_.  
_"I"_ -

"Say!" Nick exclaimed, startling the rabbit. She was teaching him the word for _speaking_.

Judy looked at Nick, a questioning look which asked an obvious question.

Nick looked at her expectantly, ready for any sentence using the new word.

Judy, with an expression which somehow mixed hope and fear together, said and signed:

_"You say you eat me."_

Nick's frown, which had vanished briefly in triumph, returned full force.

He _said_ that he would eat her?

No he didn't. At least, not recently. The only thing he said _recently_ about her being eaten was...

 _She was awake_ , Nick realized suddenly. _When I was talking this morning, she was awake._

Nick shook his head in visible denial, telling Judy _"No I didn't"_ without actually saying anything. Then, using his own paw to mimic her new gesture, he said "I say 'I don't want anyone to eat you'."

The rabbit beneath him gave a terrible shudder and screwed her eyes shut. She brought her paws to her ears, then pressed her ears over her eyes, blocking him out completely.

Nick was thoroughly confused. _Why is she so afraid?_ he thought. _I said I DON'T want anyone to eat her. It's like she's only hearing every other word I..._

Nick's thoughts stopped short.

Judy's new sentence was 'You say you eat me.' That might not be what he said but that's what she heard. He hasn't taught her many words, so when he said the sentence "I don't want anyone to eat you", the only parts _she_ could understand were... the words 'I' and 'eat' and 'you', in that order.

Nick wanted to shake his head in denial again, now that he knew what was going on, but Judy was no longer looking at him. Her ears were covering her eyes, her hands were covering her ears, and her body was curled – as much as it could be with him sitting on top of her – into a defensive ball.

"Judy," he tried out loud, to no avail.

He thought that maybe he should tickle her again, but now that he knew _why_ she was afraid, that didn't seem appropriate. Instead, he extended a single paw and _very gently_ tapped on the back of her paw with claws fully sheathed. When that didn't work he carefully took her paw in his and moved it aside, followed by her other paw, followed by her ears. Her eyelids were still scrunched shut, so he simply tapped her nose. When she _still_ didn't respond, he kept tapping until she did.

One eye eventually opened, _extremely_ afraid, but also a bit annoyed.

Nick made two sentences, using the new word and gesture:

"I say I _no_ eat you."  
"I say I _don't want anyone_ to eat you."

Both times, he shook his head in between 'I' and 'eat you', to let her know that the second sentence was essentially a more complicated version of the first.

Judy's other eye blinked open. _"You say you eat me?"_ she signed, clearly asking a question.

"No," Nick shook his head. "I say I NO eat you." He put extra emphasis on the 'no'.

_"You eat me?"_

"No," Nick shook his head again. "I _no_ eat you."

_Unless you stop getting me fish._

But just as soon as the thought entered his head, he thought twice, asking himself a question which would have been easy to answer a few days ago.

_COULD I eat her, even if she stopped feeding me?_

Before he met Judy, and even for a while after, the answer to that question would have been a simple "Yes".

Food is food. You don't eat it, you starve.

Now...

 _Could_ he?

He didn't know... until Judy collapsed in relief. Her extremely tense muscles relaxed entirely, her fetal curl flattened, and a great sigh left her lips. And when Nick felt this physical proof of trust, and saw her smile, and heard her say his name (along with words he didn't know yet), he knew that he would _never_ be able to eat her.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Nick. I shouldn't have run away. You're a good fox."

* * *

For the rest of the day, Nick explained to Judy why he had chased her, he chased her a few _more_ times so she would get better at escaping predators, and Judy taught Nick how to chop down a tree. He wasn't good enough at walking on twos to stand unsupported, so Judy spent most of Nick's lesson supporting him, or teaching him how to crouch on twos (which was easier than standing), or how to chop a tree while sitting down. On the flip side, Judy wasn't good enough to escape any of the chases, so Nick taught her how to twist out of a predator's grip, how to punch/kick to deliver the sort of pain that would make a predator let go, and how to hide her scent so she wasn't tracked down in the first place. A good chunk of her lesson was occupied by him explaining - with many gestures and demonstrations - that he could follow her with only his nose.

For his lessons, Nick made up for his lack of experience in chopping trees by having strong arms, just like Judy made up for _her_ lack of experience in escaping predators by having strong legs. Although they were both tired by the end of the day, they'd both made much more progress than either could have alone.

But when they were ready to turn in for the night, Judy encountered a new obstacle.

Nick had made it to her burrow before she did, so she was now faced with the prospect of entering a burrow that _already had_ a fox in it. This was different from last night, her instincts insisted, because last night the fox could have done whatever he wanted without her permission. If she'd told him no, he could have chosen to come inside her burrow and trap her there _anyway_ , like he did that other time. But now, her instincts told her she still had the chance to run away, go to her other burrow, and sleep _without_ fear. But sleeping without fear, in this case, also meant sleeping _alone_ , and that was much, _much_ worse. Besides, it was her _instincts_ that were afraid, _not_ her.

Judy looked at Nick, who had curled in a half-circle with a space open in the center and was tilting his head at her. She smiled, entered the burrow, then crawled into the middle of the foxy half-circle and pressed herself into the open space. Then she gasped as the fox curled his body _even more_ , closing in around her. His tail flapped across her lap, his paws were who-knew-where, and his nose rested on top of his tail.

Judy couldn't breathe.

And after he'd gotten comfortable, the fox moved a few more inches, pressing his snout into her neck.

Judy couldn't even blink.

Her instincts were screaming VERY LOUDLY that a fox's mouth was _right next to her neck_ , just like they'd screamed earlier that day. But unlike in her escaping lessons, where she was _supposed_ to be afraid and run away and have a fast heartbeat, _now_ she was trying to sleep and be calm and stay in one spot and be peaceful only she couldn't because there was a fox's mouth _right next to her neck_ and-

 _"Judy?"_ Nick asked, opening his eyes. He said the word 'you', then said another word in a questioning manner, but she was so out-of-sorts that she couldn't have tried to figure out what it was for all the carrots in the world.

"You, eat, me," she managed to gasp out in between _very_ rapid breaths. She didn't know how else to say it.

The words _"I no eat you"_ met her ears, but were lost in a sea of adrenaline which only had one outlet.

"Your mouth!"

_*Inhale*_

"Teeth!"

_*Gasp*_

"My neck!"

_*Deep Breath*_

"TOO CLOSE!"

She tried to point at each place and sign out what she meant as she did it, but it might have just looked like frantic hand-waving to the fox.

"Ch-ty," Nick said firmly, using _her_ language to say her name.

And the thing about hearing your name being said in your own language is that you can almost always pick up on it, almost always understand it, no matter what else is going on. The fox's mouth hadn't moved away from her neck yet, but hearing her name helped hamper her frantic heartbeat. A little.

 _"I NO eat you,_ Ch-ty _."_

And hearing _that_ eased her nerves a bit more. Now that the pounding in her ears no longer blocked out everything else, she could actually hear what Nick said, even if it wasn't in her language anymore.

 _"I eat fish."_ His eyes looked directly into hers as he said it. _"I no eat you."_

This calmed her completely. Her muscles relaxed, her breathing slowly evened out, and her heart rate eventually returned to normal. Even as his mouth moved _closer_ to her neck, then _pressed into it_ , she didn't panic.

With eyes closed, Nick said one last sentence.

_"I _ you."_

She didn't know whatever word he just said. All she knew was that it was warm and welcoming. It sounded nice.

Nick stayed in that position for a while, until Judy realized he'd _already fallen asleep,_ and she would have to do the same, even with a fox nose pressing into her neck. But thinking about that unknown word, over and over, and the way he said it, and how he acted _when_ he said it, eventually let her drift off into slumber.


	8. Discomfort

When Nick woke the next morning, it was with his waist betwixt rabbit legs and his neck enclosed by rabbit arms.

Judy, apparently, had wrapped her limbs firmly around his body sometime overnight.

"Judy?" he whispered.

No answer.

Nick opened his eyes to the sight of a small, scared rabbit, clinging to him tightly and trembling with tension. Her nails, he knew, were now not the nubs they normally were – he could feel them fully protruding from her paws.

" _Judy?_ " he whispered more loudly.

Still no answer. She remained unrelaxed, unrestful, and unsettled. She let out a whimper-

And Nick realized she was having a nightmare. And when he realized _that_ , he also realized he didn't know what he should do.

He wondered if he should wake her... but seeing the face of a fox might not be the best thing for a rabbit having a nightmare. So rather than ending one nightmare by replacing it with another, he instead just wrapped himself around her as tightly as she was wrapped around him, hoping to convey some amount of comfort.

It took a while, but eventually her breathing evened out. Her lock on his limbs loosened and her sleep settled into silence and stillness once again.

And then she woke up.

For a moment, Judy didn't really seem to _see_ him. But that moment didn't last long, nor did the moment of brief ignorance where she was unaware that her arms were around his neck.

When that moment ended too, her eyes went wide. She slowly brought her arms to her side, an unreadable emotion on her face. Well, it was unreadable to _Nick_. It might have been obvious to another rabbit. Nick was still getting used to reading rabbit expressions.

Nick let go himself, untangling from the embrace and going through his normal stretching routine, eyes closing as he cracked out the kinks.

In the middle of popping a particularly stubborn joint, he heard "T-ck?" come from the other side of the burrow.

He cracked a single eye open.

Judy was still staring at him.

"Judy?"

_"You _ me?"_ she asked, using a new word with an obvious gesture.

"Yes, I hold you," he said, still stretching, using a much-minimized version of the 'hold' charade Judy had used when he said that word. Because he was still stretching.

_"_?"_

Nick didn't understand that word at all, but he knew it was a question. "What?"

Judy frowned the same kind of frown Nick currently wore. Then her eyes brightened, and she signed out a rapid series of sentences.

_"I hunt fish. _? You eat fish."  
"You no eat me. _? I hunt fish."  
"I no eat fish. _? I Judy."  
"You hold me. _?"_

By the third sentence, Nick's brain was already substituting "why?" for the new word. And after the fourth sentence...

"Why did I hold you?" he repeated. "You..."

He trailed off, not knowing how to explain. Then he got a bright look in his own eye and pretended to have a nightmare. When he was done with the act, Judy had that same expression from before.

She stared at him for a long moment. Then said a new word. _"_."_

"What?" Nick asked again, tilting his head.

Judy frowned briefly, then walked up to him, gave him a quick hug, and said the new word.

_"Thanks,"_ his mind substituted.

"Ah... you're welcome."

Judy tilted her head at his own reply, then nodded decisively and turned to the burrow's entrance, grabbing her stick as she left.

* * *

Judy sat on the flat rock by the river.

_Have a nightmare?_

To her left was a large clump of clay.

_Check._

To her right were strips of clay which had been rolled into lines.

_Get helped by a fox?_

To her front was a smaller clump of clay which she'd just finished shaping into a flat, circular disk.

_Check._

She picked up one roll of clay and placed it along the circumference of the disk. She picked up another, placed it along the other half of the circumference so the whole flat disk now had a raised rim. She pressed the lines down and began smoothing out them out until they were seamless to the base.

_What a great day THIS is turning out to be._

Judy sighed as she continued raising the rim higher and higher with more lines of clay, making little incisions in the rim with a tiny twig between each addition.

_Maybe I shouldn't be so sarcastic. Nick was just trying to help. If only he didn't resemble..._

Judy sighed again.

_"Judy,"_ her ears heard, and her head turned to see...

"More carrots?" she asked, almost involuntarily. She looked from the orange vegetable to the grinning face of the fox.

Nick made a yipping sound she hadn't heard before, then placed the carrots on top of the edge of her rock.

"Um... thanks," she said, not really sure how to...

_"You're welcome,"_ said the satisfied fox. Or, at least, that's what she _assumed_ he said. Nick walked around the edge of the rock to the large pile of clay, sniffing curiously.

Judy smiled mysteriously, crunched a carrot, and got back to work.

* * *

After she'd cooked that night's fish over the fire that was firing her pot, Nick decided to teach her _his_ way of saying thanks.

"HEY!" Judy jumped in surprise. Her instincts told her he was trying to eat her, but she barely managed to override them by shouting, "EW! Gross!"

Nick's face went from smiling to worried in an instant. _"You... no... _?"_ he asked.

"No licking!" she shouted, wiping saliva off her cheek and not caring at the moment that she didn't understand what Nick had asked.

The fox wilted. His ears drooped and his eyes dropped to the ground.

With his eyes on the ground, he didn't notice the threat until almost too late.

* * *

Pain.

One moment she was shouting at Nick, the next moment her thigh and her arm were burning like they were on fire and she felt a sharp stabbing at her neck.

Her first thought was to use her spear, but she wasn't holding it.

And then her instincts took over.

Not that they did her any good.

She was already in the predator's grip and it wasn't letting go.

* * *

Nick barely registered the fact that an owl was attacking Judy before leaping into action. One moment she was shouting at him, the next moment she was three fox-lengths away from him, on the ground and being viciously attacked, and the next moment after that _he_ was on top of the owl, tearing at feathers and flesh with teeth and claws.

The owl's head swiveled and started trying to peck at _him_ , but he was already going for the neck. His movements were slightly out-of-practice, but his _body_ was slightly stronger than it used to be. Maybe not his jaw muscles, but his arms? This owl's body was a lot more forgiving than trees.

Soon enough, the owl was dead, he was panting, and Judy was whimpering beneath him. (Attacks like this rarely last more than a few seconds after the moment of contact. In nature, it's do or die.)

He rolled the owl off her, ignored his own minor stab wounds, and inspected his rabbit. But he couldn't see much detail, even with his decent night vision, so he had to move her closer to the light and warmth (while firmly ignoring the source of that light and warmth) to get a better look.

It didn't look good.

Judy's leg, side, and neck were all bleeding. The leg and side weren't exactly _shallow_ , but they didn't look life-threatening. The neck wound... if he didn't do something, she would bleed out.

He'd hunted enough rabbits to know.

And there was only one way _he_ knew to slow down the bleeding long enough for the wound to scab over. His mother had done it for him when he was little, and he was ready to do it now, but Judy had _just_ told him...

It didn't matter. If he didn't, she would die.

As he lowered his mouth to her neck, his words from last night thundered in his head: "I _protect_ you."

* * *

Her instincts hadn't calmed down in the slightest, and right now they were telling her that a fox was about to eat her.

Only... it wasn't.

It's jaw was around her jugular and she could _feel_ his tongue pressing into her neck, but not any teeth.

Was it _tasting_ her?

It wasn't... _biting_ her at least...

She was getting drowsy.

Just before she passed out, thanks to the delirium of blood loss, the part of herself that normally went away when her instincts took over rose to the surface, and she said, "No... licking..."

And then she passed out.


	9. Care

She went back and forth from aware to asleep, from waking to dreaming, from conscious to unconscious. At first, it was hard to tell which was which. Eventually, she could tell the difference by how she felt. In her sleeping nightmares, she would see sharp teeth and claws, hear vicious canine whining, and fear hungry tongues and maws. In her waking dream, she would see sharp teeth and claws, hear worried canine pining, and feel gentle tongue and jaw.

* * *

When the neck wound finally closed, Nick scrambled for what to do next.

Of course, stopping her from dying meant a lot more than stopping her from bleeding. Even worse, stopping her from bleeding _now_ didn't mean he'd stopped her bleeding _permanently_. He'd already tried leaving for a few minutes to go to the bathroom, but when he came back, Judy was squirming and squeaking, her neck wound was bleeding once more, and he had to help close it again. That meant that if he left her alone for too long, she'd start moving, her wounds would open, and she would bleed out.

He wouldn't be able to save her if he couldn't leave her side for even _two minutes_ at a time. He either needed to keep her from squirming, or, barring that, he needed a way to keep the pressure on her wounds even when he _wasn't_ sitting right next to...

Oh, wait.

That's right. He _did_ know a way to do that...

But it would take time, and if he left Judy alone too long, she'd squirm herself to death.

He needed for her to be _relaxed_ , which meant she would need to feel _safe_...

* * *

In one of her nightmares, a canine began dragging her somewhere horrible. In one of her dreams, a canine began taking her somewhere familiar.

* * *

Once Judy was in her burrow, she could go longer without squirming. Maybe fifteen to thirty minutes at a time.

That was good. It meant Nick had time to get what she needed.

* * *

In one of her nightmares, a canine bound her body in a brutish bind. In one of her dreams, a canine wrapped her wounds with winding twine.

* * *

 _Okay, that's done_ , Nick thought, giving the vines one final inspection.

He'd never done this before, so it had taken multiple tries to get it right. He'd practiced on himself first, even though he didn't have any wounds. Once he was sure he could get the ivy to a good pressure that wasn't too tight, he'd started working on Judy. And he'd re-done Judy's wounds at least five times each, until he was sure the wrappings were as good as he could possibly get them.

 _Now_ he had a _different_ problem.

Judy's body needed food and water to survive and fix itself. How was he going to get her either?

Well, food was easy enough...

* * *

In one of her nightmares, a canine brought her to its brethren for breakfast. In one of her dreams, a canine brought her breakfast, just like her brothers...

* * *

Nick sighed as Judy nibbled on a carrot in a daze.

Now came the hard part. He'd had an idea for how to bring water... it would be slow, and it probably wouldn't work very well.

But he didn't have any other ideas.

He left the burrow into the sun of day, ignoring how tired he felt after staying awake so long.

* * *

In one of her nightmares, a canine leaned over her bound body with bared fangs, ready to strike. In one of her dreams, a canine leaned over and-

* * *

" _Guh,_ " Nick heard, followed by hacking and coughing. He frowned, helped Judy sit upright, and waited for her lungs to get the water out. When she was done, he transferred the rest of the water in his mouth to hers. She didn't cough the second time.

Nick went to get more water.

When he came back, Judy was still sitting upright.

That was strange. Nick thought he'd laid her down again after sitting her up.

Then he saw her open eyes.

And he heard, " _T-ck?_ "

Nick couldn't respond at the moment, so he smiled the best he could with the water in his mouth.

" _T-ck?_ " she asked again when he was right in front of her. She began shivering when his mouth was a paw's length from hers. " _T-CK?!_ "

Nick leaned slightly forward, closing the distance, and-

Got a slap across his face, causing him to lose most of the water in his mouth, surprising him into breathing in the _rest_ of the water in his mouth, and throwing him into a coughing fit.

* * *

Judy felt her eyes widen at the sight of the spray of spit. Why had there been so much saliva inside-

Oh.

That wasn't drool, it was _water_.

Suddenly, Judy felt a lot less afraid and a lot more embarrassed.

Nick hadn't been trying to eat _or_ kiss her.

He'd been trying to hydrate her.

And she'd slapped him.

* * *

When he'd gotten all the water out of his own lungs, Nick glared at the rabbit he'd tried to help, then stopped short when he saw her trembling, her face covered with her ears.

"Judy?" he asked, now worried he'd done _another_ wrong thing. Earlier it had been licking. What was it _now_?

Judy's eye peeked out from her ear and she said a small squeaking sound that Nick couldn't understand at all.

"What?"

Judy, still with her ears mostly covering her face, made a small 'come here' gesture.

Nick, still frowning, walked forward... right into a hug.

And Judy made the same squeaking sound again. It was different from the 'thank you' squeak, and Nick could only think of one other thing it might be.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Judy said into the scruff of Nick's neck fur.

* * *

And _then_ she said the 'thank you' squeak.

"It's okay. You're welcome."

And the moment he realized she was out of immediate danger, his exhaustion hit him all at once.

And his hunger. He barely had the sense to eat the owl before sleeping – it would have gone bad overnight... _had_ come close to going bad overnight. But even if it was just _slightly_ spoiled, you don't waste food if you want to live, and eating it _after_ sleeping would have been much worse.

He rinsed his mouth in the river, getting one last drink for himself, then for Judy.

When he curled up for sleep, he tried doing it _away_ from Judy. He didn't want to accidentally move and re-open one of her wounds in his sleep. But she _insisted_ on sitting right there in the center as _she_ went back to sleep.

He was too tied to argue.

* * *

The two slept through rest the day, and through the next night.


End file.
